"
"My dear, he is not ambassador. He is minister plenipotentiary. It is
not quite the same thing. And then he is our nearest relative,--our
nearest, at least, since my own brother has made this great separation,
of course. We cannot go to him to be out of the way of himself."
"Why do you want to go anywhere, mamma? Why not stay at home?" But
Florence pleaded in vain as her mother had already made up her mind.
Before that day was over she succeeded in making her daughter understand
that she was to be taken to Brussels as soon as an answer could be
received from Sir Magnus and the necessary additions were made to their
joint wardrobe.
Sir Magnus Mountjoy, the late general's elder brother, had been for the
last four or five years the English minister at Brussels. He had been
minister somewhere for a very long time, so that the memory of man
hardly ran back beyond it, and was said to have gained for himself very
extensive popularity. It had always been a point with successive
governments to see that poor Sir Magnus got something, and Sir Magnus
had never been left altogether in the cold. He was not a man who would
have been left out in the cold in silence, and perhaps the feeling that
such was the case had been as efficacious on his behalf as his
well-attested popularity.
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