Excerpt from Our Little Gipsy, Vol. 1 of 3: A Novel He looked as supremely indifferent to every trifling occurrence passing around him as it was possible for man to look, and you saw that this was not an affected indifference; he had an air of abstraction, and his manner was most unobtrusive. His valet and his courier gave themselves much greater airs than he. By their consequential manner they endeavoured to make up for the lack of pretension in Sir Charles. Until the valet had begun to feel a little poorly, his every movement had seemed to say, Do you compre hend what a great man is my master? Poor Sir Charles! He was a great man if wealth, if landed property, if the title of baronet could make him so. Prosperity had, as it were, been thrust upon him two fortunes had he fallen into. The second estate only a few years before had come to him, bringing with it the title of baronet. Why did not my poor cousin live to enjoy what to me is almost worthless? Mused Charles Daubigny, when the mournful, or, as some would have deemed it, the joyful, intelligence was first reported to him. Why, continued he, why in Heaven's name must the fool throw away his life? But Sir Alfred must needs throw away his life. He must needs, despite of two several warnings, ride his last steeplechase. A broken rib, a fractured arm had not sufficed to deter. He was determined to make Charles Daubigny a baronet; and here is Sir Charles, his reluctant successor, pacing the deck of the Belgian steamer this stormy August day, feeling how worthless is fortune when the soul is dressed in sorrow. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.