act."

"Dreadful!" exclaimed Mr Tadpole. "I have no doubt of it. But he has no
chance of the Buck-hounds, you may rely on that. Private character is
to be the basis of the new government. Since the Reform Act that is
a qualification much more esteemed by the constituency than public
services. We must go with the times, my Lord. A virtuous middle class
shrink with horror from French actresses; and the Wesleyans--the
Wesleyans must be considered, Lord Marney."

"I always subscribe to them," said his Lordship.

"Ah!" said Mr Tadpole mysteriously, "I am glad to hear that. Nothing I
have heard to-day has given me so much pleasure as those few words. One
may hardly jest on such a subject," he added with a sanctimonious air;
"but I think I may say"--and here he broke into a horse smile--"I think
I may say that those subscriptions will not be without their fruit." And
with a bow honest Tadpole disappeared, saying to himself as he left the
house, "If you were ready to be conspirators when I entered the room, my
Lords, you were at least prepared to be traitors when I quitted it."

In the meantime Lord Marney in the best possible humour said to Lord de
Mowbray, "You are going to White's are you? If so take me."

"I am sorry, my dear Lord, but I have an appointment in the city. I have
got to go to the Temple, and I am already behind my time."

Book 4 Chapter 13

And why was Lord de Mowbray going to the Temple? He had received the day
before when he came home to dress a very disagreeable letter from some
lawyers, apprising him that they were instructed by their client Mr
Walter Gerard to commence proceedings against his lordship on a writ of
right with respect to his manors of Mowbray, Valence, Mowedale, Mowbray
Valence, and several others carefully enumerated in their precise
epistle, and the catalogue of which read like an extract from Domesday
Book.

More than twenty years had elapsed since the question had been mooted;
and though the discussion had left upon Lord de Mowbray an impression
from which at times he had never entirely recovered, still circumstances
had occurred since the last proceedings which gave him a moral if not a
legal conviction that he should be disturbed no more. And these were the
circumstances: Lord de Mowbray after the death of the father of Walter
Gerard had found himself in communication with the agent who had
developed and pursued the claim for the yeoman, and had purchased for
a good rou