g for their individualism his own tastes, plans,
and sentiments, one might almost say his own individualism, and losing
money thereby, he had gone far to demonstrate his pet theory that the
higher the individualism the more sterile the life of the community. If,
however, the matter was thus put to him he grew both garrulous and angry,
for he considered himself not an individualist, but what he called a
"Tory Communist." In connection with his agricultural interests he was
naturally a Fair Trader; a tax on corn, he knew, would make all the
difference in the world to the prosperity of England. As he often said:
"A tax of three or four shillings on corn, and I should be farming my
estate at a profit."

Mr. Pendyce had other peculiarities, in which he was not too individual.
He was averse to any change in the existing order of things, made lists
of everything, and was never really so happy as when talking of himself
or his estate. He had a black spaniel dog called John, with a long nose
and longer ears, whom he had bred himself till the creature was not happy
out of his sight.

In appearance Mr. Pendyce was rather of the old school, upright and
active, with thin side-whiskers, to which, however, for some years past
he had added moustaches which drooped and were now grizzled. He wore
large cravats and square-tailed coats. He did not smoke.

At the head of his dining-table loaded with flowers and plate, he sat
between the Hon. Mrs. Winlow and Mrs. Jaspar Bellew, nor could he have
desired more striking and contrasted supporters. Equally tall,
full-figured, and comely, Nature had fixed between these two women a gulf
which Mr. Pendyce, a man of spare figure, tried in vain to fill. The
composure peculiar to the ashen type of the British aristocracy wintered
permanently on Mrs. Winlow's features like the smile of a frosty day.
Expressionless to a degree, they at once convinced the spectator that she
was a woman of the best breeding. Had an expression ever arisen upon
these features, it is impossible to say what might have been the
consequences. She had followed her nurse's adjuration: "Lor, Miss Truda,
never you make a face--You might grow so!" Never since that day had
Gertrude Winlow, an Honourable in her own right and in that of her
husband, made a face, not even, it is believed, when her son was born.
And then to find on the other side of Mr. Pendyce that puzzling Mrs.
Bellew with the green-grey eyes, at which the b