The father did
not deem the labours of study fit occupation for the sons of an ancient
house:--"_Depend_ upon it," he would say, "they'll all do well with my
connexions--they will be able to command what they please." The Honourable
Mistress Augustus could not now boast of a full purse, for they had long
been living on the memory of their once ample fortune.
The Honourable Mister Augustus Headerton died, in the forty-fifth year of
his age, of inflammation, caught in an old limekiln, where he was
concealed to avoid an arrest for the sum of 180 guineas, for black Nell,
the famous filly, who won the cup on the Curragh of Kildare--purchased in
his name, but without his knowledge, by his second son, the pride of the
family--commonly called dashing Dick.
All I know further of the Honourable Mistress Augustus Headerton is, that
"She played at cards, and died."
Miss Georgiana--the beauty, and greatest fool of the family, who
_depended_ on her face as a fortune, did get a husband--an old, rich West
India planter, and eloped, six months after marriage, with an officer of
dragoons.
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