at finding himself where he was. The very aspect of the Winnipeg hotel,
as he looked curiously round it, seemed to prove to him both the
seriousness of certain plans and intentions of his own, and the unusual
decision with which he had been pursuing them.

For undoubtedly, of his own accord, and for mere travellers' reasons, he
would not at this moment be travelling in Canada. The old world was
enough for him; and neither in the States nor in Canada had he so far
seen anything which would of itself have drawn him away from his
Cumberland house, his classical library, his pets, his friends and
correspondents, his old servants and all the other items in a comely and
dignified way of life.

He was just forty and unmarried, a man of old family, easy disposition,
and classical tastes. He had been for a time Member of Parliament for
one of the old Universities, and he was now engaged on a verse
translation of certain books of the Odyssey. That this particular labour
had been undertaken before did not trouble him. It was in fact his
delight to feel himself a link in the chain of tradition--at once the
successor and progenitor of scholars. Not that his scholarship was
anything illustrious or profound. Neither as poet nor Hellenist would he
ever leave any great mark behind him; but where other men talk of "the
household of faith," he might have talked rather of "the household of
letters," and would have seen himself as a warm and familiar sitter by
its hearth. A new edition of some favourite classic; his weekly
_Athenæum_; occasional correspondence with a French or Italian
scholar--(he did not read German, and disliked the race)--these were his
pleasures. For the rest he was the landlord of a considerable estate, as
much of a sportsman as his position required, and his Conservative
politics did not include any sympathy for the more revolutionary