During
the months of my engagement to Violet these communications of mine
(you will allow) were frequent enough: since our marriage they have
grown shamefully fewer. Possibly I lose alertness while I put on
flesh: it is the natural hebetudus of happiness. "Q."--who is never
seen now upon London stones--no doubt sends you a plenty of what
passes for news in that parish which it is his humour to prefer to the
Imperial City. But, believe me, the very finest romance is still to be
had in London: and to prove this I am going to tell you a story that,
upon my soul, Prince, will make you sit up.
Until last night the Seely-Hardwickes were a force in this capital.
They were three,--Seely-Hardwicke himself, who owned a million or
more, and to my knowledge drank Hollands and smoked threepenny Returns
in his Louis Quinze library; Mrs. Seely-Hardwicke, as beautiful as
the moon and clever to sinfulness; and Billy, their child, aged
seven-and-a-half. To-day their whereabouts would be as difficult to
find as that of the boy in Mrs. Hemans's ballad. You jump to the guess
that they have lost their money.
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