and perhaps liked; but his loving and his liking had been
exclusively political. He had so habituated himself to devote his
mind and his heart to the service of his country, that he had
almost risen above or sunk below humanity. But she, who had been
essentially human, had been a link between him and the world.

There were his three children, the youngest of whom was now nearly
nineteen, and they surely were links! At the first moment of his
bereavement they were felt to be hardly more than burdens. A more
loving father there was not in England, but nature had made him so
undemonstrative that as yet they had hardly known his love. In all
their joys and in all their troubles, in all their desires and all
their disappointments, they had ever gone to their mother. She had
been conversant with everything about them, from the boys' bills
and the girl's gloves to the innermost turn in their heart and the
disposition of each. She had known with the utmost accuracy the
nature of the scrapes into which Lord Silverbridge had
precipitated himself, and had known also how probable it was that
Lord Gerald would do the same. The results of such scrapes she, of
course, deplored; and therefore she would give good counsel,
pointing out how imperative it was that such evil-doings should be
avoided; but with the spirit that produced the scrapes she fully
sympathized. The father disliked the spirit almost worse than the
results; and was therefore often irritated and unhappy.

And the difficulties about the girl were almost worse to bear that
those about the boys. She had done nothing wrong. She had given no
signs of extravagance or other juvenile misconduct. But she was
beautiful and young. How was he to bring her out into the world?
How was he to decide whom she should or whom she should not marry?