to her; but the indulgence had its set limits.
Whatever she asked solely for herself he granted;
whatever she wished for matters under feminine control—the
domestic household, the parish school, the alms-receiving
poor—obtained his gentlest consideration.
But when she had been solicited by some offending
out-of-door dependant or some petty defaulting tenant
to use her good offices in favour of the culprit,
Mr. Travers checked her interference by a firm “No,”
though uttered in a mild accent, and accompanied with
a masculine aphorism to the effect that “there
would be no such things as strict justice and disciplined
order in the world if a man yielded to a woman’s
pleadings in any matter of business between man and
man.” From this it will be seen that Mr.
Lethbridge had overrated the value of Cecilia’s
alliance in the negotiation respecting Mrs.
Bawtrey’s
premium and shop.
If, having just perused what has thus been written
on the biographical antecedents and mental characteristics
of Leopold Travers, you, my dear reader, were to be
personally presented to that gentleman as he now stands,
the central figure of the group gathered round him,
on his terrace, you would probably be surprised,—nay,
I have no doubt you would say to yourself, “Not
at all the sort of man I expected.” In
that slender form, somewhat below the middle height;
in that fair countenance which still, at the age of
forty-eight, retains a delicacy of feature and of
colouring which is of almost womanlike beauty, and,
from the quiet placidity of its expression, conveys
at first glance the notion of almost womanlike mildness,—it
would be difficult to recognize a man who in youth
had been renowned for reckless daring, in maturer
years more honourably distinguished for steadfast prudence
and determined purpose, and who, alike in faults or
in merits, was as emphatically masculine as a biped
in trousers can possibly be.
Mr. Travers is listening to a young man of about two
and twenty, the eldest son of the richest nobleman
of the county, and who intends to start for the representation
of the shire at the next general election, which is
close at hand. The Hon. George Belvoir is tall,
inclined to be stout, and will look well on the hustings.
He has had those pains taken with his education which
an English peer generally does take with the son intended
to succeed to the representation of an honourable
name and the responsibilities of high station.
If eldest sons do not often make as great a figure
in the world as their younger brothers, it is not
because their minds are less cultivated, but because
they have less motive power for action. George
Belvoir was well read, especially in that sort of
reading which befits a future senator,—history,
statistics, political economy, so far as that dismal
science is compatible with the agricultural interest.
He was also well-principled, had a strong sense of
