I am now twenty-five and odd months....
"I think my mother told the circumstances (on my hearing of her
marriage) to the Parkynses, and certainly to the Pigot family, and
probably mentioned it in her answer to Miss A., who was well
acquainted with my childish _penchant_, and had sent the news on
purpose for _me_,--and thanks to her!
"Next to the beginning, the conclusion has often occupied my
reflections, in the way of investigation. That the facts are thus,
others know as well as I, and my memory yet tells me so, in more than
a whisper. But, the more I reflect, the more I am bewildered to assign
any cause for this precocity of affection."
Though the chance of his succession to the title of his ancestors was
for some time altogether uncertain--there being, so late as the year
1794, a grandson of the fifth lord still alive--his mother had, from
his very birth, cherished a strong persuasion that he was destined not
only to be a lord, but "a great man." One of the circumstances on
which she founded this belief was, singularly enough, his
lameness;--for what reason it is difficult to conceive, except that,
possibly (having a mind of the most superstitious cast), she had
consulted on the subject some village fortune-teller, who, to ennoble
this infirmity in her eyes, had linked the future destiny of the child
with it.
By the death of the grandson of the old lord at Corsica in 1794, the
only claimant, that had hitherto stood between little George and the
immediate succession to the peerage, was removed; and the increased
importance which this event conferred upon them was felt not only by
Mrs.
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