Roundabout Papers [113]
you see, given me courage. "What a pretty snuff-box!" he remarked, as I handed him mine, which I am still old-fashioned enough to carry. It is a pretty old gold box enough, but valuable to me especially as a relic of an old, old relative, whom I can just remember as a child, when she was very kind to me. "Yes; a pretty box. I can remember when many ladies-- most ladies, carried a box--nay, two boxes--tabatiere, and bonbonniere. What lady carries snuff-box now, hey? Suppose your astonishment if a lady in an assembly were to offer you a prise? I can remember a lady with such a box as this, with a tour, as we used to call it then; with paniers, with a tortoise-shell cane, with the prettiest little high-heeled velvet shoes in the world!--ah! that was a time, that was a time! Ah, Eliza, Eliza, I have thee now in my mind's eye! At Bungay on the Waveney, did I not walk with thee, Eliza? Aha, did I not love thee? Did I not walk with thee then? Do I not see thee still?" This was passing strange. My ancestress--but there is no need to publish her revered name--did indeed live at Bungay St. Mary's, where she lies buried. She used to walk with a tortoise-shell cane. She used to wear little black velvet shoes, with the prettiest high heels in the world. "Did you--did you--know, then, my great gr-ndm-ther?" I said. He pulled up his coat-sleeve--"Is that her name?" he said. "Eliza ----" There, I declare, was the very name of the kind old creature written in red on his arm. "YOU knew her old," he said, divining my thoughts (with his strange knack); "I knew her young and lovely. I danced with her at the Bury ball. Did I not, dear, dear Miss ----?" As I live, he here mentioned dear gr-nny's MAIDEN name. Her maiden name was ----. Her honored married name was ----. "She married your great gr-ndf-th-r the year Poseidon won the Newmarket Plate," Mr. Pinto dryly remarked. Merciful powers! I remember, over the old shagreen knife and spoon case on the sideboard in my gr-nny's parlor, a print by Stubbs of that very horse. My grandsire, in a red coat, and his fair hair flowing over his shoulders, was over the mantel-piece, and Poseidon won the Newmarket Cup in the year 1783! "Yes; you are right. I danced a minuet with her at Bury that very night, before I lost my poor leg. And I quarrelled with your grandf----, ha!" As he said "Ha!" there came three quiet little taps on the table--it is the middle table in the "Gray's-inn Coffee-house," under the bust of the late Duke of W-ll-ngt-n. "I fired in the air," he continued "did I not?" (Tap, tap, tap.) "Your grandfather hit me in the leg. He married three months afterwards. 'Captain Brown,' I said, 'who could see Miss Sm-th without loving her?' She is there! She is there!" (Tap, tap, tap.) "Yes, my first love--" But here there came tap, tap, which everybody knows means "No." "I forgot," he said, with a faint blush stealing over his wan features, "she was not my first love. In Germ--- in my own country-- there WAS a young woman--" Tap, tap, tap. There was here quite a lively little treble knock; and when the old man said, "But I loved thee better than all the world, Eliza," the affirmative signal was briskly repeated. And this I declare UPON MY HONOR. There was, I have said, a bottle of port-wine before us--I should say a decanter. That decanter was LIFTED up, and out of it into our respective glasses two bumpers of wine were poured. I appeal to Mr. Hart, the landlord--I appeal to James, the respectful and intelligent waiter, if this statement is not true? And when we had finished that magnum, and I said--for I did not now in the least doubt of her presence--"Dear gr-nny, may we have another magnum?" the table DISTINCTLY rapped "No." "Now, my good sir," Mr. Pinto said, who really began to be affected by the wine, "you understand the interest I have taken in you. I loved Eliza ----" (of course I don't mention family names). "I knew you had that box which belonged to her--I will give you what you like for that box. Name your price at once, and I pay you on the spot." "Why,