him be able to drive into Bamford on market day, and get two or three
linendrapers to take their hats off to him, and he will be happy enough,
and always ready to die for our glorious Constitution."



CHAPTER XIV

Eighteen hundred and thirty-two, the darkest and most distressing year
in the life of Mr. Ferrars, closed in comparative calm and apparent
content. He was himself greatly altered, both in manner and appearance.
He was kind and gentle, but he was silent and rarely smiled. His hair
was grizzled, and he began to stoop. But he was always employed, and was
interested in his labours.

His sanguine wife bore up against their misfortunes with far more
animation. She was at first amused with her new life, and when she was
accustomed to it, she found a never-failing resource in her conviction
of a coming reaction. Mrs. Ferrars possessed most feminine qualities,
and many of them in excess. She could not reason, but her intuition was
remarkable. She was of opinion that "these people never could go on,"
and that they must necessarily be succeeded by William and his friends.
In vain her husband, when she pressed her views and convictions on him,
would shake his head over the unprecedented majority of the government,
and sigh while he acknowledged that the Tories absolutely did not now
command one fifth of the House of Commons; his shakes and sighs were
equally disregarded by her, and she persisted in her dreams of riding
upon elephants.

After all Mrs. Ferrars was right. There is nothing more remarkable in