a century and a half. He had married an earl's daughter,
and had always lived among men and women not only of high rank, but
also of high character. He had kept race-horses when he was young, as
noblemen and gentlemen then did keep them, with no view to profit,
calculating fairly their cost as a part of his annual outlay, and
thinking that it was the proper thing to do for the improvement
of horses and for the amusement of the people. He had been in
Parliament, but had made no figure there, and had given it up. He
still kept his house in Bruton Street, and always spent a month or
two in London. But the life that he led was led at Humblethwaite, and
there he was a great man, with a great domain around him,--with many
tenants, with a world of dependants among whom he spent his wealth
freely, saving little, but lavishing nothing that was not his own
to lavish,--understanding that his enjoyment was to come from the
comfort and respect of others, for whose welfare, as he understood
it, the good things of this world had been bestowed upon him. He was
a proud man, with but few intimacies,--with a few dear friendships
which were the solace of his life,--altogether gracious in his
speech, if it were not for an apparent bashfulness among strangers;
never assuming aught, deferring much to others outwardly, and showing
his pride chiefly by a certain impalpable _noli me tangere_, which
just sufficed to make itself felt and obeyed at the first approach of
any personal freedom. He was a handsome man,--if an old man near to
seventy may be handsome,--with grey hair, and bright, keen eyes, and
arched eyebrows, with a well-cut eagle nose, and a small mouth, and a
short dimpled chin. He was under the middle height, but nevertheless
commanded attention by his appearance. He wore no beard save a slight
grey whisker, which was cut away before it reached his chin. He was
strongly made, but not stout, and was hale and active for his age.

Such was Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite. The account of Lady
Elizabeth, his wife, may be much shorter. She was known,--where she
was known,--simply as Sir Harry's wife. He indeed was one of those
men of whom it may be said that everything appertaining to them takes
its importance from the fact of its being theirs. Lady Elizabeth was
a good woman, a good wife, and a good mother, and was twenty years
younger than her husband. He had been forty-five years old when he
had married her, and she, even yet, had no