as beyond all
telling. Triumph had been his aim as a schoolboy; he held it fitting
that as a man he should become prominent amongst his fellows. This of
politics was the easiest way. To be sure, he told himself that it was a
way he would once have sneered at, that it was to rub shoulders with men
altogether his inferiors in culture, that, had he held to the ideals of
his youth, a longer, a wearier course would have been his, and the
chance of a simpler, nobler crown. But he had the gift of speech, and by
an effort could absorb himself as completely in blue-books as in the
pages of historian or poet. An hour such as this was the first of his
rewards.

Two there were in this assembly who turned their eyes upon him with
adoration which could scarcely have fallen short of Wilfrid's utmost
demands. They were his cousins, Minnie and Patty Rossall. The twins were
'out,' very sweet girls, still too delicate in health, shadows of each
other. Had they regarded Wilfrid as a mere mortal, both would have been
dying for love of him; as it was they drooped before him the veiled eyes
of worshippers; a word from him made their pulses tingle blissfully
throughout the day. Such was their mutual love, that each schemed to win
his kindness for the other, his brotherly kindness, for they never
thought, had never dared to think, of anything else. Wilfrid was very
gracious to them both.

He shook hands with Beatrice, but neither spoke. After a few words with
Mrs. Baxendale, he passed on to other ladies. Wilfrid's manner was now
all that could be desired in a young man who, destined to succeed in
politics, would naturally make a figure in society. He was pliant, he
struck the note of good-breeding, he was unsurpassed in phrasing; with
ladies who chose to be 'superior,' he could find exactly the right tone,
keeping clear of pedantry, yet paying her with whom he spoke the
compliment of uttering serious opinions. With the more numerous class of
ladies, who neither were nor affected to be anything but delightful
chatterboxes, he could frolic on the lightest airs of society gossip. He
was fast making of himself an artist in talk; woe to him, if he began to
discover that exertion of his brain was waste of time, since his more
obvious ends could be gained equally well without it. As yet, though
hints of such a mood had come to him, he did not give way to the
temptations of loquacious idleness; he still worked, and purposed to
work still harder. Just