fled, the sordid
ideas of him which accused him of the world's one passion, and were
transferred to her own bosom in reproach that she should have imagined
them existing in his! He talked simply and sweetly of his defeat, of
time wasted away from the canvass, of loss of money: and he had little
to spare, he said. The water-colour drawing interested him. He said
he envied her that power of isolation, and the eye for beauty in every
season. She opened a portfolio of Mr. Tuckham's water-colour drawings in
every clime; scenes of Europe, Asia, and the Americas; and he was to
be excused for not caring to look through them. His remark, that they
seemed hard and dogged, was not so unjust, she thought, smiling to
think of the critic criticized. His wonderment that a young man like his
Lancastrian cousin should be 'an unmitigated Tory' was perhaps natural.

Cecilia said, 'Yet I cannot discern in him a veneration for
aristocracy.' 'That's not wanted for modern Toryism,' said Nevil. 'One
may venerate old families when they show the blood of the founder, and
are not dead wood. I do. And I believe the blood of the founder, though
the man may have been a savage and a robber, had in his day finer
elements in it than were common. But let me say at a meeting that I
respect true aristocracy, I hear a growl and a hiss beginning: why?
Don't judge them hastily: because the people have seen the aristocracy
opposed to the cause that was weak, and only submitting to it when it
commanded them to resist at their peril; clinging to traditions, and
not anywhere standing for humanity: much more a herd than the people
themselves. Ah! well, we won't talk of it now. I say that is no
aristocracy, if it does not head the people in virtue--military,
political, national: I mean the qualities required by the times for
leadership. I won't bother you with my ideas now. I love to see you
paint-brush in hand.'

Her brush trembled on the illumination of a scarlet maple. 'In this
country we were not originally made free and equal by decree, Nevil.'

'No,' said he, 'and I cast no blame on our farthest ancestors.'

It struck her that this might be an outline of a reply to Mr. Austin.

'So you have been thinking over it?' he asked.

'Not to conclusions,' she said, trying to retain in her mind the
evanescent suggestiveness of his previous remark, and vexed to find
herself upon nothing but a devious phosphorescent trail there.

Her forehead betrayed the unwont