answered, "not to day, love; I have to think about this." And he put
his hand up to his head, as though this thinking about it had
already been too much for him.

Mr. Prendergast was a man over sixty years of age, being, in fact,
considerably senior to Sir Thomas himself. But no one would have
dreamed of calling Mr. Prendergast an old man. He was short of
stature, well made, and in good proportion; he was wiry, strong, and
almost robust. He walked as though in putting his foot to the earth
he always wished to proclaim that he was afraid of no man and no
thing. His hair was grizzled, and his whiskers were grey, and round
about his mouth his face was wrinkled; but with him even these
things hardly seemed to be signs of old age. He was said by many who
knew him to be a stern man, and there was that in his face which
seemed to warrant such a character. But he had also the reputation
of being a very just man; and those who knew him best could tell
tales of him which proved that his sternness was at any rate
compatible with a wide benevolence. He was a man who himself had
known but little mental suffering, and who owned no mental weakness;
and it might be, therefore, that he was impatient of such weakness
in others. To chance acquaintances his manners were not soft, or
perhaps palatable; but to his old friends his very brusqueness was
pleasing. He was a bachelor, well off in the world, and, to a
certain extent, fond of society. He was a solicitor by profession,
having his office somewhere in the purlieus of Lincoln's Inn, and
living in an old-fashioned house not far distant from that classic
spot. I have said that he owned no mental weakness. When I say
further that he was slightly afflicted with personal vanity, and
thought a good deal about the set of his hair, the shape of his
coat, the fit of his boots, the whiteness of his hands, and the