when he was himself only a boy of ten, and they had survived his own
bringing up in some of the austerest houses in the town, so vitally
as to enable him to bequeath them almost unchastened to his son.

As has been noted, Loo had easily lived down the prejudices of his
own generation against an un-English gaiety, and inconsequence
almost amounting to emotion. And nothing is, or was in the solid
days before these trumpet-blowing times, so unwelcome in British
circles as emotion.

Frenchman had no doubt prepared the way for his son; but the
peculiarities of thought and manner which might be allowed to pass
in a foreigner would be less easily forgiven in Loo, who had
Farlingford blood in his veins. For his mother had been a Clubbe,
own cousin, and, as gossips whispered, once the sweetheart of
Captain Clubbe himself and daughter of Seth Clubbe of Maiden's
Grave, one of the largest farmers on the Marsh.

"It cannot be for no particular purpose that the boy has been
created so different from any about him," Captain Clubbe muttered,
reflectively, as he thought of Dormer Colville's words. For he had
that simple faith in an Almighty Purpose, without which no wise man
will be found to do business on blue water.

"It is strange how a man may be allowed to inherit from a
grandfather he has never seen a trick of manner, or a face which are
not the manner or face of his father," observed Colville, adapting
himself, as was his habit, to the humour of his companion. "There
must, as you suggest, be some purpose in it. God writes straight on
crooked lines, Captain."