‘Sir Telegraph is thoughtless,’ said Mr. Forester, ‘but he has a good heart and a good natural capacity. I have great hopes of him. He had some learning, when he went to college; but he was cured of it before he came away. Great, indeed, must be the zeal for improvement which an academical education cannot extinguish.’ CHAPTER VIII THE SPIRIT OF CHIVALRY Sir Telegraph was welcomed to Melincourt in due form by Mr. Hippy, and in a private interview with the Honourable Mrs. Pinmoney, was exhorted to persevere in his suit to Anthelia, though she could not flatter him with very strong hopes of immediate success, the young lady’s notions being, as she observed, extremely outré and fantastical, but such as she had no doubt time and experience would cure. She informed him at the same time, that he would shortly meet a formidable rival, no less a personage than Lord Anophel Achthar,[26] son and heir of the Marquis of Agaric[27] who was somewhat in favour with Mr. Hippy, and seemed determined at all hazards to carry his point; ‘and with any other girl than Anthelia,’ said Mrs. Pinmoney, ‘considering his title and fortune, I should pronounce his success infallible, unless a duke were to make his appearance.’ She added, ‘The young lord would be accompanied by his tutor, the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub, and by a celebrated poet, Mr. Feathernest, to whom the Marquis had recently given a place in exchange for his conscience. It was thought by Mr. Feathernest’s friends that he had made a very good bargain. The poet had, in consequence, burned his old _Odes to Truth and Liberty_, and had published a volume of Panegyrical Addresses “to all the crowned heads in Europe,” with the motto, “Whatever is at court, is right.”’ The dinner-party that day at Melincourt Castle consisted of Mr. Hippy, in the character of lord of the mansion; Anthelia, in that of his inmate; Mrs. and Miss Pinmoney, as her visitors; and Sir Telegraph, as the visitor of Mrs. Pinmoney, seconded by Mr. Hippy’s invitation to stay. Nothing very luminous passed on this occasion.