ecial port in which he delighted. Altogether his life was
not very attractive; and though he had been born to a baronetcy, and
eight thousand a-year, and the possession of Aylmer Park, I do not
think that he was, or had been, a happy man.

Lady Aylmer was more fortunate. She had occupations of which her
husband knew nothing, and for which he was altogether unfit. Though
she could not succeed in making retrenchments, she could and did
succeed in keeping the household books. Sir Anthony could only blow
up the servants when they were thoughtless enough to come in his way,
and in doing that was restricted by his wife's presence. But Lady
Aylmer could get at them day and night. She had no gout to impede
her progress about the house and grounds, and could make her way to
places which the master never saw; and then she wrote many letters
daily, whereas Sir Anthony hardly ever took a pen in his hand. And
she knew the cottages of all the poor about the place, and knew also
all their sins of omission and commission. She was driven out, too,
every day, summer and winter, wet and dry, and consumed enormous
packets of wool and worsted, which were sent to her monthly from
York. And she had a companion in her daughter, whereas Sir Anthony
had no companion. Wherever Lady Aylmer went Miss Aylmer went with
her, and relieved what might otherwise have been the tedium of her
life. She had been a beauty on a large scale, and was still aware
that she had much in her personal appearance which justified pride.
She carried herself uprightly, with a commanding nose and broad
forehead; and though the graces of her own hair had given way to
a front, there was something even in the front which added to her
dignity, if it did not make her a handsome woman.

Miss Aylmer, who was the eldest of the younger generation, and who
was now gently descending from her fortieth year, lacked the strength
of her mother's character, but admired her mother's ways, and
followed Lady Aylmer in all things,--at a distance. She was very
good,--as indeed was Lady Aylmer,--entertaining a high idea of duty,
and aware that her own life admitted of but little self-indulgence.
She had no pleasures, she incurred no expenses; and was quite
alive to the fact that as Aylmer Park required a regiment of lazy,
gormandizing servants to maintain its position in the county, the
Aylmers themselves should not be lazy, and should not gormandize. No
one was more careful with her few shill