respected socially the ladies of his own class, and demanded that they should be without stain, as befits the wives and mothers and sisters of gentlemen, but who thought women of a meaner grade fair game for the roving fowler; a conservative, holding to elemental differences whence arise the value of races, the dignity of family and the righteousness of caste; an hereditary landowner, regarding landed property as a sacred possession meant only for the few and not to be suffered to lapse into low-born hands; a gentleman, incapable of falsehood, treachery, meanness, social dishonor, but not incapable of injustice, tyranny, selfishness, even cruelty, if such came in his way as the privilege of his rank,—­this was Edgar Harrowby as the world saw and his friends knew him, and as North Aston had henceforth to know him.

His return caused immense local excitement and great rejoicing.  It seemed to set the social barometer at “fair,” and to promise a spell of animation such as North Aston had been long wanting.  And indeed personally for himself it was time that Major Harrowby was at home and at the head of his own affairs.  Matters had been going rather badly on the estate without him, and the need of a strong hand to keep agents straight and tenants up to the mark had been making itself somewhat disastrously felt during the last three or four years.  Wherefore he had sold out, broken all his ties in India handsomely, as he had broken them in London handsomely once before, when, mad with jealousy, he had fled like a thief in the night, burned his boats behind him, and, as he thought, obliterated every trace by which that loved and graceless woman could discover his real name or family holding; and now had come home prepared to do his duty to society and himself.  That is, prepared to marry a nice girl of his own kind, keep the estate well in hand, and set an example of respectability and orthodoxy, family prayers and bold riding, according to the ideal of the English country gentleman.

But, above all, he must marry.  And the wife provided for him by the eternal fitness of things was Adelaide Birkett.  Who else could be found to suit the part so perfectly?  She was well-born, well-mannered; though not coarsely robust, yet healthy in the sense of purity of blood; and she was decidedly pretty.  So far to the good of the Harrowby stock in the future.  Neither was she too young, though by reason of her quiet country life her twenty-four years did not count more to her in wear and tear of feeling and the doubtful moulding of experience than if she had lived through one London season.  She was a girl of acknowledged good sense, calm, equable, holding herself in the strictest leash of ladylike reserve, and governing all her emotions without trouble, patent or unconfessed.  Hers was a character which would never floreate into irregular beauties to give her friends anxiety and crowd her life with embarrassing consequences.  She despised sentiment and ridiculed enthusiasm, thought skepticism both wicked and disreputable, but at the same time fanaticism was silly, and not nearly so respectable as that quiet, easy-going religion which does nothing of which society would disapprove, but does not break its heart in trying to found the kingdom of God on earth.