dead; dead, happy old man, with a contented heart--his affairs
flourishing, his poorer neighbours loving him, his richer respecting him,
his son and daughter-in-law, the most affectionate and devoted that ever
man had, and his healthy conscience at peace with his God.

Lettice could have lived to herself and her husband and children. Edward
daily required more and more the stimulus of society. His wife wondered
how he could care to accept dinner invitations from people who treated
him as "Wilkins the attorney, a very good sort of fellow," as they
introduced him to strangers who might be staying in the country, but who
had no power to appreciate the taste, the talents, the impulsive artistic
nature which she held so dear. She forgot that by accepting such
invitations Edward was occasionally brought into contact with people not
merely of high conventional, but of high intellectual rank; that when a
certain amount of wine had dissipated his sense of inferiority of rank
and position, he was a brilliant talker, a man to be listened to and
admired even by wandering London statesmen, professional diners-out, or
any great authors who might find themselves visitors in a ---shire
country-house. What she would have had him share from the pride of her
heart, she should have warned him to avoid from the temptations to sinful
extravagance which it led him into. He had begun to spend more than he
ought, not in intellectual--though that would have been wrong--but in
purely sensual things. His wines, his table, should be such as no
squire's purse or palate could command. His dinner-parties--small in
number, the viands rare and delicate in quality, and sent up to table by
an Italian cook--should be such as even the London stars should notice
with admiration. He would have Lettice dressed in the richest materials,
the most delicate lace; jewellery, he said, was beyond their means;
glancing with proud humility at the diamonds of the elder ladies, and the
alloyed gold of the younger. But he managed to spend as much on his