“Clifton!” said Fairfax, more seriously than he had yet spoken, “all your illustrations—all your metaphors—all your thoughts, fancies and imaginings are—not ‘of the earth, earthy,’ but worse—far worse—of the _world_, _worldly_! Of the world, its castes, customs and conventions—its pomps, vanities and falsities! You speak of the grandest, the most imposing—oh! let me call it at once, the most magnificent area of mountain scenery in the hemisphere, with all the earth, below and around, covered with a sea of vapor that rises and falls, rolling from horizon to horizon, like the waves of the ocean, and you compare it to a veiled royal bride! You describe a mighty mountain-river, rending its passage through the everlasting rocks, overleaping, uprooting, bearing down and bearing on all obstacles to its resistless rush towards the sea, and you liken it to a chieftain going to pay tribute to a King! Ah, Clifton of Clifton, the beauty, the glory, and the majesty of the _earth_ pleases you, but the ‘pomp, pride, and circumstance’ of the _world_ inspires you! But when was it otherwise with a Clifton, of Clifton? ‘The spirit of intense worldliness has ever been their bane and curse—their sin and its punishment!’” he concluded, relapsing into his mock-tragic air. “Ah! so you are familiar with the popular legend that you have just quoted,” said Captain Clifton. “But,” he added, with a sarcastic smile, “were Georgia here, I think she could refute the charge, and prove one Clifton, at least, has been guided by any spirit rather than that of ‘intense worldliness.’” “_Georgia?_” “I beg her pardon! Mrs. Clifton, of Clifton.” “Oh! your aunt! but by my soul, Captain, that was a very irreverent way of introducing the old lady! Do young men in your patriarchal part of the country call old gentlewomen by their Christian names?” “Old gentlewomen!” repeated Clifton slowly, with a musing smile, adding—“Georgia is about seventeen years of age, and the most beautiful woman in the world!” “Whe-e-e-ew! I’m amazed! I’m confounded! I’m stunned! Then—the present Mrs. Clifton is the _second_ wife?” “No, sir—Georgia is my uncle’s fourth wife.” “Overwhelmed!—annihilated!” exclaimed the young man. “The—the—old Blue-beard! the old Henry VIII.! Four wives! Are they all living?—if not, where does he bury his dead?” “_Fairfax!_” exclaimed Captain Clifton, in a tone, and with a look, that speedily recalled the young man to himself—then he added, rather haughtily—“My Uncle Clifton is a simple, gentle-hearted old man, excessively fond of women, but mark you, sir!—it is the affection of the patriarch, not of the pacha.”