by prejudices which belonged properly
to an earlier generation, and of singularly narrow sympathies and
interests. He believed him to be an upright man according to his
lights, which were not perhaps very brilliant lights after all; but he
knew him to be one whom few people found it possible to like, partly
on account of his arrogance, which was excessive; and partly on
account of his want of consideration for the feelings of others, which
arose from lack of perception.

People are disliked more often for a bad manner than for a bad heart.
The one is their private possession--the other they obtrude on their
acquaintance.

Sir Timothy's heart was not bad, and he cared less for being liked
than for being respected. He was the offspring of a _mesalliance_; and
greatly over-estimating the importance in which his family was held,
he imagined he would be looked down upon for this mischance, unless he
kept people at a distance and in awe of him. The idea was a foolish
one, no doubt, but then Sir Timothy was not a wise man; on the
contrary, his lifelong determination to keep himself loftily apart
from his fellow-men had resulted in an almost extraordinary ignorance
of the world he lived in--a world which Sir Timothy regarded as a wild
and misty place, peopled largely and unnecessarily with savages and
foreigners, and chiefly remarkable for containing England; as England
justified its existence by holding Devonshire, and more especially
Barracombe.

Sir Timothy had never been sent to school, and owed such education as
he possessed almost entirely to his half-sisters. These ladies
were considerably his seniors, and had in turn been brought up at
Barracombe by their grandmother; whose maxims they still quoted, and
whose ideas they had scarcely outgrown. Under the circumstances, the
narrowness of his outlook was perhaps hardly to be wondered at.

But the dull immovability and sense of importance which characterized
him now seemed to the doctor to be almost tragically charged with the
typical matter-of-fact courage of the Englishman; who displays neither
fear nor emotion; and who would regard with horror the suspicion that
such repression might be heroic.

"When is it to be?" said Blundell.

"To-morrow."

"To-morrow!"

"And here," said Sir Timothy; "Dr. Herslett objected, but I insisted.
I won't be ill in a strange house. I shall recover far more
rapidly--if I am to recover--among my people, in my native air. London
sti