were a direct result.) Lord Durwent was a well-behaved young man of
unimpeachable character and family, and he was sincerely attracted by
the agreeable expanse of lively femininity found in the fair Sybil.
After a wedding that left her mother a triumphant wreck and appreciably
hastened her father's demise, she was duly installed as the mistress of
Roselawn, the Durwent family seat, and its tributary farms. The
tenants gave her an address of welcome; her husband's mother gracefully
retired to a villa in Sussex; the rector called and expressed
gratification; the county families left their cards and inquired after
her father, the ironmonger.

Unfortunately the new Lady Durwent had the temperament neither of a
poet nor of a lady of the aristocracy. She failed to hear the tongues
in trees, and her dramatic sense was not satisfied with the little
stage of curtsying tenantry and of gentlefolk who abhorred the very
thought of anything theatrical in life.

On the other hand, her husband was a man who was unhappy except on his
estate. He thought along orthodox lines, and read with caution. He
loved his lawns, his gardens, his horses, and his habits. He was a
pillar of the church, and always read a portion of Scripture from the
reading-desk on Sunday mornings. His wife he treated with simple
courtesy as the woman who would give him an heir. If his mind had been
a little more sensitive, Lord Durwent would have realised that he was
asking a hurricane to be satisfied with the task of a zephyr.

They had a son.

The tenants presented him with a silver bowl; Lord Durwent presented
them with a garden fête; and the parents presented the boy with the