demeanour is not insignificant.  No doubt the ladies of Brookfield would have rebutted the idea of a tail-coat influencing them in any way as monstrous.  But why was it, when Mr. Pole again harped on his cook, in almost similar words, that they were drawn to meet the eyes of the stranger, on whom they printed one of the most fabulously faint fleeting looks imaginable, with a proportionately big meaning for him that might read it?  It must have been that this uniform of a tail had laid a basis of equality for the hour, otherwise they never would have done so; nor would he have enjoyed the chance of showing them that he could respond to the remotest mystic indications, with a muffled adroitness equal to their own, and so encouraged them to commence a language leading to intimacy with a rapidity that may well appear magical to the uninitiated.  In short, the man really had the language of the very elect of polite society.  If you are not versed in this alphabet of mute intelligence, you are in the ranks with waiters and linen-drapers, and are, as far as ladies are concerned, tail-coated to no purpose.

Mr. Pole’s fresh allusion to his cook:  “I hope you don’t think I keep a man!  No; no; not in the country.  Wouldn’t do.  Plays the deuce, you know.  My opinion is, Mrs. Mallow’s as clever as any man-cook going.  I’d back her:”  and Mr. Barrett’s speech:  “She is an excellent person!” delivered briefly, with no obtrusion of weariness, confirmed the triumph of the latter; a triumph all the greater, that he seemed unconscious of it.  They leaped at one bound to the conclusion that there was a romance attached to him.  Do not be startled.  An attested tail-coat, clearly out of its element, must contain a story:  that story must be interesting; until its secret is divulged, the subtle essence of it spreads an aureole around the tail.  The ladies declared, in their subsequent midnight conference, that Mr. Barrett was fit for any society.  They had visions of a great family reduced; of a proud son choosing to earn his bread honourably and humbly, by turning an exquisite taste to account.  Many visions of him they had, and were pleased.

Patronage of those beneath, much more than the courting of those above them, delighted the ladies of Brookfield.  They allowed Emilia to give Mr. Barrett invitations, and he became a frequent visitor; always neat, pathetically well-brushed, and a pleasanter pet than Emilia, because he never shocked their niceties.  He was an excellent talker, and was very soon engaged in regular contests with the argumentative Cornelia.  Their political views were not always the same, as Cornelia sometimes had read the paper before he arrived.  Happily, on questions of religion, they coincided.  Theories of education occupied them mainly.  In these contests Mr. Barrett did not fail to acknowledge his errors, when convicted, and his acknowledgment was hearty and ample.  She had many clear triumphs.