ought to have done. His father, Squire Stephen, had been plucked at
Oxford, and, with stubborn pride, he had refused to go up again. Nay,
more! he had sworn a great oath, as men did in those days, that none of
his children to come should ever know either university by becoming a
member of it. He had only one child, the present squire, and he was
brought up according to his father's word; he was sent to a petty
provincial school, where he saw much that he hated, and then turned
loose upon the estate as its heir. Such a bringing up did not do him
all the harm that might have been anticipated. He was imperfectly
educated, and ignorant on many points; but he was aware of his
deficiency, and regretted it in theory. He was awkward and ungainly in
society, and so kept out of it as much as possible; and he was
obstinate, violent-tempered, and dictatorial in his own immediate
circle. On the other side, he was generous, and true as steel; the very
soul of honour in fact. He had so much natural shrewdness, that his
conversation was always worth listening to, although he was apt to
start by assuming entirely false premisses, which he considered as
incontrovertible as if they had been mathematically proved; but, given
the correctness of his premisses, nobody could bring more natural wit
and sense to bear upon the arguments based upon them.

He had married a delicate fine London lady; it was one of those
perplexing marriages of which one cannot understand the reasons. Yet
they were very happy, though possibly Mrs. Hamley would not have sunk
into the condition of a chronic invalid, if her husband had cared a
little more for her various tastes, or allowed her the companionship of
those who did. After his marriage he was wont to say he had got all
that was worth having out of that crowd of houses they called London.
It was a compliment to his wife which he repeated until the year of her
death; it charmed her at first, it pleased her up to the last time of