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had been taught to repeat my father's name with disdain, and to scoff at my
just claims to protection. I strove to think that all this grandeur was but
more glaring infamy, and that, by planting his gold-enwoven flag beside my
tarnished and tattered banner, he proclaimed not his superiority, but his
debasement. Yet I envied him. His stud of beautiful horses, his arms of
costly workmanship, the praise that attended him, the adoration, ready
servitor, high place and high esteem,--I considered them as forcibly
wrenched from me, and envied them all with novel and tormenting
bitterness.
To crown my vexation of spirit, Perdita, the visionary Perdita, seemed to
awake to real life with transport, when she told me that the Earl of
Windsor was about to arrive.
"And this pleases you?" I observed, moodily.
"Indeed it does, Lionel," she replied; "I quite long to see him; he is the
descendant of our kings, the first noble of the land: every one admires and
loves him, and they say that his rank is his least merit; he is generous,
brave, and affable."
"You have learnt a pretty lesson, Perdita," said I, "and repeat it so
literally, that you forget the while the proofs we have of the Earl's
virtues; his generosity to us is manifest in our plenty, his bravery in the
protection he affords us, his affability in the notice he takes of us. His
rank his least merit, do you say? Why, all his virtues are derived from his
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