Penny Blood Serial Fiction — page 203: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

186 REYNOLDS’ WORKS order that he might dispense with the train of attendants, the pomp, the splendour, and the ceremony, which it would have been necessary to support had he maintained that rank. At Naples he dwelt in a private manner, avoiding society, and using his immense wealth in doing good to the utmost of his power. Years passed on, and with his mind, so did his person change. Care and sorrow altered his counte- nance, and at length it became impossible to recognize in him the once handsome and fascinating Marquis of Eagle- dean. For those who knew him many, many long years ago can truthfully aver that he was both handsome in person and fascinating in manners, and if they beheld him now, they would not entertain the slightest suspicion of his identity. But as those years of self-expatriation passed on, the tone of his mind acquired a degree of resignation which prevented him from falling into complete cynicism and misanthropy. Nay, more, he even learned to smile again at times, to put on a cheerful aspect, and to deport himself with a blunt good-humour. His habits had naturally be- come eccentric from the secluded life he had led for so long a period; and indeed, it is often in eccentricity on the part of old men that the sense of past cares and sorrows either becomes merged or else finds its peculiar expression. | ‘“ Yes, years passed, — those years which so completely altered the mind, the habits, and the personal appearance of the Marquis of Eagledean. At length he resolved to pay a visit to England. He had several reasons for this determi- nation, to which he did not however arrive suddenly and in a moment of eccentricity. He had received many evil accounts concerning his nephew, Lord Harold Staunton, the presumptive heir to his title and estates. These reports had reached him through indirect channels, for Lady Mac- donald, Lord Harold Staunton’s aunt, was too indulgent to- ward her nephew to write any particulars very materially to his prejudice. Therefore the marquis resolved to visit London and ascertain for himself the truth of those rumours. There was another reason. Lady Macdonald had informed him that his niece, Lady Florina Staunton, was contracted to Lord Saxondale. Now, through the same channels which had conveyed to the Marquis of Eagledean the irregularities of Lord Harold Staunton, intelligence had reached him of a similarly prejudicial character in respect to Lord Saxondale. Gomichbooks:com