occupies an honourable post; but I thought that, in the course of so
many generations, one Carthew might have clambered higher. The soldier
had stuck at Major-General; the churchman bloomed unremarked in an
archidiaconate; and though the Right Honourable Bailley seemed to have
sneaked into the privy council, I have still to learn what he did when
he had got there. Such vast means, so long a start, and such a modest
standard of achievement, struck in me a strong sense of the dulness of
that race.

I found that to come to the hamlet and not visit the Hall, would be
regarded as a slight. To feed the swans, to see the peacocks and
the Raphaels--for these commonplace people actually possessed two
Raphaels--to risk life and limb among a famous breed of cattle called
the Carthew Chillinghams, and to do homage to the sire (still living) of
Donibristle, a renowned winner of the oaks: these, it seemed, were
the inevitable stations of the pilgrimage. I was not so foolish as to
resist, for I might have need before I was done of general good-will;
and two pieces of news fell in which changed my resignation to
alacrity. It appeared in the first place, that Mr. Norris was from home
"travelling "; in the second, that a visitor had been before me and
already made the tour of the Carthew curiosities. I thought I knew who
this must be; I was anxious to learn what he had done and seen; and
fortune so far favoured me that the under-gardener singled out to be my
guide had already performed the same function for my predecessor.

"Yes, sir," he said, "an American gentleman right enough. At least, I
don't think he was quite a gentleman, but a very civil person."

The person, it seems, had been civil enough to be delighted with the
Carthew Chillinghams, to perform the whole pilgrimage with rising
admiration, and to have almost prostrated himself before the shrine of
Donibristle's sire.

"He told me, sir," continued the gratified under-gardener, "that he had
often read of the 'stately 'omes of England,' but ours was the first he
had the chance to see. When he came to the 'ead of the long alley, he
fetched his breath. 'This is indeed a lordly domain!' he cries. And
it was natural he should be interested in the place, for it seems
Mr. Carthew had been kind to him in the States. In fact, he seemed a
grateful kind of person, and wonderful taken up with flowers."

I heard this story with amazement. The phrases quoted told their own
tale; they we