Roman occupation of Britain, and
especially on the conquests of Vespasian. The circle of--the
Westcotes' acquaintance gathered in the fine hall of Bayfield--or, as
Narcissus preferred to call it, the atrium--drank tea, admired the
pavement, listened to the alleged exploits of Vespasian, and wondered
when the brothers would marry. Time went on, repeating these
assemblies; and the question became, Will they ever marry? Apparently
they had no thought of it, no idea that it was expected of them; and
since they had both passed forty, the question might be taken as
answered. But that so personable a man as Endymion Westcote would let
the family perish was monstrous to suppose. He kept his good looks and
his fresh complexion; even now some maiden would easily be found to
answer his Olympian nod; and a vein of recklessness sometimes cropped
up through his habitual caution, and kept his friends alert for
surprises. In the hunting-field, for instance,--and he rode to hounds
twice a week,--he made a rule of avoiding fences; but the world quite
rightly set this down to a proper care for his person rather than to
timidity, since on one famous occasion, riding up to find the whole
field hesitating before a "rasper" (they were hunting a strange country
that day), he put his horse at it and sailed over with a nonchalance
relieved only by his ringing laugh on the farther side. It was odds he
would clear the fence of matrimony, some day, with the same casual
heartiness; and, in any case, he was masterful enough to insist on
Narcissus marrying, should it occur to him to wish it.

Oddly enough, the gossips who still arranged marriages for the brothers
had given over speculating upon their hostess, Miss Dorothea. She could
not, of course, perpetuate the name; but this by no means accounted for
all the difference in their concern. Dorothea Westcote was now thirty-
seven, or five years younger than Narcissus, whose mother had died soon
after his birth. The widower had created one of the few scandals in the
Westcote history by espousing, some four years later, a young woman of
quite inferior class, the daughter of a wholesale glover in Axcester.
The new wife had good looks, but they did not procure her pardon; and
she made the amplest and speediest amends by dying within twelve
months, and leaving a daughter who in no way resembled her. The husband
survived her just a dozen years.

Dorothea, the daughter, was a plain girl; her brothers, tho