"
"Only conceive the effect of this dashing equipage in Bond Street!"
continued she, redoubling her mirth at the bright idea; then suddenly
stopping, and sighing--
"Ah, my pretty _vis-a-vis!_ I remember the first time I saw you,
Henry, I was in it at a review;" and she sighed still deeper.
"True; I was then aid-de-camp to your handsome lover, the Duke of
L----------."
"Perhaps I might think him handsome now. People's tastes alter according
to circumstances."
"Yours must have undergone a wonderful revolution, if you can find
charms in a hunchback of fifty three."
"He is not a hunchback," returned her Ladyship warmly; "only a little
high shouldered; but at any rate he has the most beautiful place and the
finest house in England."
Douglas saw the storm gathering on the brow of his capricious wife, and
clasping her in his arms, "Are you indeed so changed, my Julia, that you
have forgot the time when you used to declare you would prefer a desert
with your Henry to a throne with another."
"No, certainly, not changed; but--I--I did not very well know then
what a desert was; or, at least, I had formed rather a different idea of
it."
"What was your idea of a desert?" said her husband, laughing. "Do tell
me, love."
"Oh! I had fancied it a beautiful place, full of roses and myrtles, and
smooth green turf, and murmuring rivulets, and, though very retired, not
absolutely out of the world; where one could occasionally see one's
friends, and give _dejeunes et fetes champetres_.
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