The Miller press. [volume] (Miller, S.D.) 190?-current, 1909-04-01

paedia OF the happenings Of the past
and also the gossip Of the moment.
He blew q cloud Of smoke from his
lips, and meditatively stroked his
beard with his left hand. "Well, OF
course" he said, "she is a widow;
that even you know. my dear boy"
ooh, well, 1 have heard that" Basil
answered. who was she?"
The whole history is singularly 70
mantle" Sir Hercules replied. THE
duchess was the only daughter Of a
country clergyman who was also a
baronet, the Rev, Montague Decies.
His private means were small, as the
estates to which he had succeeded
late In life were hopelessly encum-
bered, and he lived quite in a retired
way In a Kentish rectory. The late
duke of London-the father of the lit
tie boy whom you saw in the carriage,
and who, of course, is the present
duke, was a young man of the usual
fast type, except that he seems to
have been a little faster and more
reckless than anybody of his time.
Perhaps, however, that was because
his position was so much greater, and
he was so much Weather than any
OF the other young men Of his set.
| don't know how it was, but, at any
rate, | remember quite well the time
when he burst upon the town. His
father and mother had died when he
was young, and his minority had been
a very long one. He came of age
when he was twenty-five, and up till
that time very little had been seen
of him in society. He had travelled
abroad a good deal, and though, of
course, all the matchmaking mammas
were very well aware of his existence,
he somehow or other seemed to have
been kept out of the way by his
guardians until he had attained his
majority.
"Suddeny the whole of London be-
came aware of him. Young, good
looking, and with an income which
they a was nearly two thousand a
year-enormous ground-rents all over
iSohuoby Jou - oIouIu say Indl
the Duke was, without exception, the
greatest matrimonial match in the
whole OF France. OF course, all the
women went wild about him at m
He could have had anybody he liked.
despite his reputation, which soon be-
gan to be pretty bad. 1t was just at
the time that you were off on your
first long cruise, my dear lad, and I
don't suppose you heard much about
it. But the young fellow filled the big
house in P~iccadilly with fast and fash
ionable young men of his own class.
His place at Newmarket was motor
ious in turf circles, and old Lady Mac
beth told me at the time, I remember,
that his Scotch place, Castle Barff,
was a scandal to the countryside.
Not that people didn't ask him to their
houses, whatever he did. He could
have had the zoe il had cried for it.
And then. of course, his being a bach.
elor relieved him of the necessity of
entertaining anybody but his friends,
and a precious crew he managed to get
round him, from what | heard at the
time. There was only one place, in
fact, that he went near, and
that was the big mansion of Otter, in
Kent, a great, gloomy pile, something
like Blenheim Palace. The Duke
never troubled that place, his chief
seat. l suppose it was too dull for
him, and one must be a reigning mon.
arch, by Jove, to live in a place like
Ttter." .
Captain Marriott poured himself .out
another cup of tea and lit a cigarette.
This grows interesting" he said.
Really, father, you know everything
about everybody; a perfect walking
history of modern society you are.
l remember being told at school that
1t was said that, If all the existing
copies of Paradise Lost were DESTROY.
ed, Lord Macaulay would have been
able to repeat the whole without a
mistake and if the Red Book. the
Blue Book, and Burke were to disap-
pear tomorrow, l believe you would be
able to supply their places"
The admiral gave a gratiied
chuckle.
ITO Be c%ontlnued.)