CHAPTER IV.

Before, however, we go on to chronicle the ultimate success or
failure of Mrs. Thornburgh as a match-maker, it may be well to
inquire a little more closely into the antecedents of the man who
had suddenly roused so much activity in her contriving mind. And,
indeed, these antecedents are important to us. For the interest
of an uncomplicated story will entirely depend upon the clearness
with which the reader may have grasped the general outlines of a
quick soul's development. And this development had already made
considerable progress before Mrs. Thornburgh set eyes upon her
husband's cousin, Robert Elsmere.

Robert Elsmere, then, was well born and fairly well provided with
this world's goods; up to a certain moderate point, indeed, a
favorite of fortune in all respects. His father belonged to the
younger line of an old Sussex family, and owed his pleasant country
living to the family instincts of his uncle, Sir William Elsmere,
in whom Whig doctrines and Conservative traditions were pretty
evenly mixed, with a result of the usual respectable and inconspicuous
kind. His virtues had descended mostly to his daughters, while all
his various weaknesses and fatuities had blossomed into vices in
the person of his eldest son and heir, the Sir Mowbray Elsmere of
Mrs. Seaton's early recollections.

Edward Elsmere, rector of Murewell in Surrey, and father of Robert,
had died before his uncle and patron; and his widow and son had