However that may
be, Sir Michael, at any rate, pacing the streets of Pera, saw the
woman that she was passing fair, and fell in love with her outright
at some dervish entertainment. But being a very well-behaved old
man, combining a liking for Orientals with a British taste for the
highest respectability, he had the girl baptized and made into a
proper Christian first; and then he married her off-hand and brought
her home with him as my Lady Ewes to England. She was presented at
Court, to George the Second; and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu stood
her sponsor on the occasion."
"But how did it all turn out?" the manager asked, with an air of
intelligent historical interest.
"Turn out? Well, it turned out in a thumping big family of thirteen
children," the Colonel answered; "most of whom, happily for the
father, died young, But the five who survived, and who married at
last into very good connections, all had one peculiarity, which
they transmitted to all their female descendants. Very odd these
hereditary traits, to be sure. Very singular! Very singular!"
"Ah, to be sure," the manager answered, turning over a pile of
letters. "And what was the hereditary trait handed down, as you
say, in the family of the Roumanian lady?"
"Why, in the first place," the Colonel continued, leaning back in
his chair, and making himself perfectly comfortable, "all the girls
of the Ewes connection, to the third and fourth generation, have
olive-brown complexions, creamy and soft, but clear as crystal.
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