him and a strange new force tingling in every vein.

Meanwhile, however, Mr. Flaxman was certainly having a good deal of his
own way. Since the moment when his aunt, Lady Charlotte, had introduced
him to Miss Leyburn--watching him the while with a half-smile which soon
broadened into one of sly triumph--Hugh Flaxman had persuaded himself
that country houses are intolerable even in the shooting season, and
that London is the only place of residence during the winter for the
man who aspires to govern his life on principles of reason. Through his
influence and that of his aunt, Rose and Agnes--Mrs. Leyburn never went
out--were being carried into all the high life that London can supply in
November and January. Wealthy, highborn, and popular, he was gradually
devoting his advantages in the freest way to Rose's service. He was an
excellent musical amateur, and was always proud to play with her; he had
a fine country house, and the little rooms on Campden Hill were almost
always filled with flowers from his gardens; he had a famous musical
library, and its treasures were lavished on the girl violinist; he had a
singularly wide circle of friends, and with his whimsical energy he
was soon inclined to make kindness to the two sisters the one test of a
friend's good-will.

He was clearly touched by Rose; and what was to prevent his making an
impression on her? To her sex he had always been singularly attractive.
Like his sister, he had all sorts of bright impulses and audacities
flashing and darting about him. He had a certain _hauteur_ with men,
and could play the aristocrat when he pleased, for all his philosophical
radicalism. But with women he was the most delightful mixture of
deference and high spirits. He loved the grace of them, the daintiness
of their dress, the softness of their voices. He would have done
anything to please them, anything to save them pain. At twenty-five,
when he was still 'Citizen Flaxman' to his college friends, and in the
first fervors of a poetic defiance of prejudice and convention, he
had married a gamekeeper's pretty daughter. She had died with her
child--died, almost, poor thing! of happiness and excitement--of the
over-greatness of Heaven's boon to her. Flaxman had adored her, and
death had tenderly embalmed a sentiment to which life might possibly
have been less kind. Since then he had lived in music, letters, and
society, refusing out of a certain fastidiousness to enter politics,
but welco