"Since the whole choir of Muses, madam, have migrated to the Court of
Whitehall, no wonder if some dews of Parnassus should fertilize at times
even our Devon moors."

The speaker was a tall and slim young man, some five-and-twenty years
old, of so rare and delicate a beauty, that it seemed that some Greek
statue, or rather one of those pensive and pious knights whom the old
German artists took delight to paint, had condescended to tread awhile
this work-day earth in living flesh and blood. The forehead was very
lofty and smooth, the eyebrows thin and greatly arched (the envious
gallants whispered that something at least of their curve was due to
art, as was also the exceeding smoothness of those delicate cheeks).
The face was somewhat long and thin; the nose aquiline; and the languid
mouth showed, perhaps, too much of the ivory upper teeth; but the
most striking point of the speaker's appearance was the extraordinary
brilliancy of his complexion, which shamed with its whiteness that of
all fair ladies round, save where open on each cheek a bright red spot
gave warning, as did the long thin neck and the taper hands, of sad
possibilities, perhaps not far off; possibilities which all saw with an
inward sigh, except she whose doting glances, as well as her resemblance
to the fair youth, proclaimed her at once his mother, Mrs. Leigh
herself.

Master Frank, for he it was, was dressed in the very extravagance of
the fashion,--not so much from vanity, as from that delicate instinct
of self-respect which would keep some men spruce and spotless from one
year's end to another upon a desert island; "for," as Frank used to say
in his sententious way, "Mr. Frank Leigh at least beholds me, though
none else be by; and why should I be more discourteous to him than
I permit others to be? Be sure that he who is a Grobian in his own