hing around him that was to be purchased.
Indeed it was said of him by his enemies, that so covetous was he
of Barsetshire property, that he would lead a young neighbour on to
his ruin, in order that he might get his land. What--oh! what if he
should come to be possessed in this way of any of the fair acres of
Framley Court? What if he should become possessed of them all? It can
hardly be wondered at that Lady Lufton should not like Chaldicotes.

The Chaldicotes set, as Lady Lufton called them, were in every way
opposed to what a set should be according to her ideas. She liked
cheerful, quiet, well-to-do people, who loved their Church, their
country, and their Queen, and who were not too anxious to make a
noise in the world. She desired that all the farmers round her should
be able to pay their rents without trouble, that all the old women
should have warm flannel petticoats, that the working men should
be saved from rheumatism by healthy food and dry houses, that they
should all be obedient to their pastors and masters--temporal as well
as spiritual. That was her idea of loving her country. She desired
also that the copses should be full of pheasants, the stubble-field
of partridges, and the gorse covers of foxes; in that way, also, she
loved her country. She had ardently longed, during that Crimean War,
that the Russians might be beaten--but not by the French, to the
exclusion of the English, as had seemed to her to be too much the
case; and hardly by the English under the dictatorship of Lord
Palmerston. Indeed, she had had but little faith in that war after
Lord Aberdeen had been expelled. If, indeed, Lord Derby could have
come in! But now as to this Chaldicotes set. After all, there was
nothing so very dangerous about them; for it was in London, not
in the country, that Mr. Sowerby indulged, if he did indulge, his
bachelor mal-practices. Speaking of them as a set, the chief offender
was Mr. Harold Smith, or perhaps his wife. He also was a member of
Parliament, and, as many thought, a rising man. His father had been
for many years a debater in the House, and had held high office.
Harold, in early life, had intended himself for the Cabinet; and if
working hard at his trade could ensure success, he ought to obtain
it sooner or later. He had already filled more than one subordinate
station, had been at the Treasury, and for a month or two at the
Admiralty, astonishing official mankind by his diligence. Those
last-name