"In that house,--oh, new people! I forget their names,--but rich; in a year or two, with luck, they may be exclusives, and forget my name. In the other house, Carr Vipont still." "Vipont; those dear Viponts! what of them all? Crawl they, sting they, bask they in the sun, or are they in anxious process of a change of skin?" "Hush! my dear friend: no satire on your own connections; nothing so injudicious. I am a Vipont, too, and all for the family maxim, 'Vipont with Vipont, and come what may!'" "I stand rebuked. But I am no Vipont. I married, it is true, into their house, and they married, ages ago, into mine; but no drop in the blood of time-servers flows through the veins of the last childless Darrell. Pardon. I allow the merit of the Vipont race; no family more excites my respectful interest. What of their births, deaths, and marriages?" COLONEL MORLEY.--"As to the births, Carr has just welcomed the birth of a grandson; the first-born of his eldest son (who married last year a daughter of the Duke of Halifax),--a promising young man, a Lord in the Admiralty. Carr has a second son in the Hussars; has just purchased his step: the other boys are still at school. He has three daughters too, fine girls, admirably brought up; indeed, now I think of it, the eldest, Honoria, might suit you, highly accomplished; well read; interests herself in politics; a great admirer of intellect; of a very serious turn of mind too." DARRELL.--"A female politician with a serious turn of mind,--a farthing rushlight in a London fog! Hasten on to subjects less gloomy. Whose funeral achievement is that yonder?" COLONEL MORLEY.--"The late Lord Niton's, father to Lady Montfort." DARRELL.--"Lady Montfort! Her father was a Lyndsay, and died before the Flood. A deluge, at least, has gone over me and my world since I looked on the face of his widow." COLONEL MORLEY.--"I speak of the present Lord Montfort's wife,--the Earl's. You of the poor Marquess's, the last Marquess; the marquisate is extinct. Surely, whatever your wanderings, you must have heard of the death of the last Marquess of Montfort?" "Yes, I heard of that," answered Darrell, in a somewhat husky and muttered voice. "So he is dead, the young man! What killed him?" COLONEL MORLEY.--"A violent attack of croup,--quite sudden. He was staying at Carr's at the time. I suspect that Carr made him talk! a thing he was not accustomed to do. Deranged his system altogether. But don't let us revive painful subjects." DARRELL.--"Was she with him at the time?" COLONEL MORLEY.--"Lady Montfort? No; they were very seldom together." DARRELL.--"She is not married again yet?"