oughtfulness from the lord and lady
of the place, and servants who had served both long and faithfully
could look forward to a decent pension until death sent them to the
great equality of the next world.

If one could trace the history of the Durwent family from the
beginning, it would be seen that among the victims of a hereditary
system there must be numbered many of the aristocracy themselves.
Caricaturists and satirists, who smear the many with the weaknesses of
the few, would have us believe that the son of a lord is no better than
the son of a fool; yet, if the vaults of some of the old families were
to unfold their century-hugged secrets, it would be seen that, as
Gray's country churchyard might hold some mute inglorious Milton, so
might these vaults hold the ashes of many a splendid brain ruined by
the genial absurdity of 'class' wherein it had been placed. A boy with
a title suspended over his head like the sword of Damocles may enter
life's arena armed with great aspirations and the power to bring a
depth of human understanding to earth's problems, but what chance has
he against the ring of antagonists who confront him? Flunkeyism,
'swank,' the timid worship of the peerage, the leprosy of social
hypocrisy, all sap his strength, as barnacles clinging to the keel of a
ship lessen her speed with each recurring voyage.

It is not that the hereditary system injures directly; its crime lies
in what it engenders--the pestilence of snobbery, which poisons nearly
all who come into contact with it, titled and untitled, frocked and
unfrocked, washed and unwashed. The very servants create a comic-opera
set of rules for their below-stairs life, and the man who has butlered
for a lord, even if the latter be the greatest fool of his day, looks
with scorn upon the valet of some lesser fellow who, perchance, is
forced to make a living by his brains.

III.

The house at Roselawn was large, and, with its ivy-covered exterior,
presented a spectacle of considerable beauty. The front was in the
form of a 'hollow square,' creating an imposing courtyard, and giving
the windows of the library and the drawing-room ample opportunity for
sunshine. From these windows there was a charming vista of well-kept
lawns, margined with gardens possessed of a hundred tones of exquisite
colour. At the back of the house the windows looked out on receding
meadows that melted into the solidarity of woods.

The drawing-room (Lady Durwent