t Lord St. Serf's fault, who was not at all aware
of his son's dreams, and had never had an ideal in his life. But John
Tatham was right in saying that Lord St. Serf was another man. The shock
of a new responsibility, of a position to occupy and duties to fulfil,
were things that might not have much moved the dis-Honourable Phil two
years before. But he was fifty, and beginning to feel himself an old
fogey, as he confessed. And his son overawed Lord St. Serf. His son, who
was so like him, yet had the mother's quick, impetuous eyes, so rapid to
see through everything, so disdainful of folly, so keen in perception.
He was afraid to bring upon himself one of those lightning flashes from
the eyes of his boy, and doubly afraid to introduce his son anywhere, to
show him anything that might bring upon him the reproach of doing harm
to Pippo. His house, which had been very decent and orderly in the late
Lord St. Serf's time, became almost prim in the terror Phil had lest
they should say that it was bad for the boy.

As for Lady St. Serf, it was popularly reported that the reason why she
almost invariably lived in the country was her health, which kept her
out of society--a report, I need not say, absolutely rejected by society
itself, which knew all the circumstances better than you or I do: but
which sufficed for the outsiders who knew nothing. When Elinor did
appear upon great occasions, which she consented to do, her matured
beauty gave the fullest contradiction to the pretext on which she
continued to live her own life. But old Lord St. Serf, who got old
so long before he need to have done, with perhaps the same sort of
constitutional weakness which had carried off all his brothers before
their time, or perhaps because he had too much abused a constitution
which was not weak--grew more and more fond in his latter days of the
country too, and kept appearing at Lakeside so often that at last the
ladies removed much nearer town, to the country-house of the St. Serfs,
which had not been occupied for ages, where they presented at last
the appearance of a united family; and where "Lomond" (who would have
thought it very strange now to be addressed by any other name) brought
his friends, and was not ill-pleased to hear his father discourse, in a
way which sometimes still offended the home-bred Pippo, but which the
other young men found very amusing. It was not in the way of morals,
however, that Lord St. Serf ever offended. The fea