44 FLORAL CONVERSATLON. 
affirm that when he put on his coronet the strawberry 
leaves turned into ice-plants. Indeed, we all of us found 
a relief and comfort in this harmless kind of ridicule, just 
as schoolboys most delight to mimic the master who rules 
the most unkindly over them. It was a natural and pleas¬ 
ant rebound from the constraint and awful abasement to 
which his presence reduced us. * * * * 
Now this iron duke, you will be surprised to hear, had 
actually condescended to marry. Of course, if Cupid had 
not been blindfold, he would no more have thought of 
taking aim at him than a schoolboy of shooting his favor¬ 
ite arrow against the wall of a fives-court, and how that 
promiscious young archer made his dart to stick in the 
ducal granite must remain for ever among the “things not 
generally known.” Never since Eve had the world seen 
such a proof of love’s omnipotence, as when he sent our 
grim lord a-courting. No weaker influence ever could 
have taught that cold pale face to smile, to smile and to 
beam with a happy brightness, as the snow sparkles in 
the sun. But how he ever remembered her name, or 
brought himself to proffer those little tendernesses, which 
are usual upon these occasions—those touches of nature 
which make the whole world kin—is to me a complete 
perplexity, an unreality as astonishing as though I were to. 
