About five was then the fashionable dinner-hour: thus, as Lady Eglinton had arrived later, a few friends and neighbours came to sup at Rohallion. The conversation all ran on rents, agriculture, and politics; high-toryism had full sway. Thus Napoleon, the Corsican tyrant--who was averred to have copied Alexander in Egypt, Cæsar in Italy, and Charlemagne in France, no bad example surely--together with Sir Francis Burdett, and the atrocious opposition party, were very liberally devoted to the infernal gods. The younger ladies idled over the piano, in the old-fashioned yellow damask drawing-room. The faithless Quentin, apparently quite oblivious of the presence of his former friend, Lady Mary, was quite fascinated by the new visitor, whom he had innumerable matters to tell and to show. The worthy Lord smiled benignantly as he watched them, and, while taking a pinch of the Prince's mixture from the gold-enamelled box, which had been presented to him by H.R.H. the Duke of York, he remarked to an old friend, who, in powder, wide cuffs, pigtail, and knee-breeches, seemed the counterpart of himself, that "truly we lived in rapid and wonderful times." Poor Lord Rohallion! he could little foresee the time when posterity would be flying over Europe at the rate of sixty miles an hour, and when, instead of powdering his cherished pigtail, he might have it cut by machinery--the Victorian age of Crystal Palaces, crinoline, and chloroform--of spirit-rapping, wordy patriotism, and paper collars. CHAPTER XI. LOVE, AND MATTERS PERTAINING THERETO. "They would sit and sigh, And look upon each other and conceive Not what they ailed; yet something did they ail, And yet were well--and yet they were not well; And what was their disease they could not tell." According to a recent novelist, "the happiest portions of existence are the most difficult to chronicle." As we approach that period of Quentin's career, which was indeed his happiest, we experience something of this difficulty; and having much concerning his adventures to relate, must glance briefly at the gradual change from boyhood into youth--from youth to manhood, almost prematurely, for, by the course of events, misfortunes came early; and somewhat abruptly was Quentin thrust forth into the great battle of life. But we anticipate. At that happy time, when he had neither thought nor care--no past to regret, and no future to dread, Flora Warrender and Quentin were in the bloom of their youth. The girl was already highly accomplished; but Dominie Skaill, when acting as tutor to the lad, strove to imbue _her_ with some love for classical lore, and he bored her accordingly.