democracy of letters, or contended for the leadership of States. He had
begun already to think that the country was no such exile after all.
Naturally benevolent, he had taught himself to share the occupations his
Mary had already found in the busy "luxury of doing good," and to
conceive that brotherhood of charity which usually unites the lord of the
village with its poor.

"I think, what with hunting once a week,--I will not venture more till my
pain in the side is quite gone,--and with the help of some old friends at
Christmas, we can get through the winter very well, Mary."

"Ah, those old friends, I dread them more than the hunting!"

"But we'll have your grave father and your dear, precise, excellent
mother to keep us in order. And if I sit more than half an hour after
dinner, the old butler shall pull me out by the ears. Mary, what do you
say to thinning the grove yonder? We shall get a better view of the
landscape beyond. No, hang it! dear old Sir Miles loved his trees better
than the prospect; I won't lop a bough. But that avenue we are planting
will be certainly a noble improvement--"

"Fifty years hence, Charles!"

"It is our duty to think of posterity," answered the ci-devant
spendthrift, with a gravity that was actually pompous. "But hark! is
that two o'clock? Three, by Jove! How time flies! and my new bullocks
that I was to see at two! Come down to the farm, that's my own Mary.
Ah, your fine ladies are not such bad housewives after all!"

"And your fine gentlemen--"