am sorry you do not agree in my estimate of them. I
should have thought your strong sense would have made you perceive that
reasoning upon fact, and granting nothing without tangible proof, were
the best remedy for a dreamy romantic tendency to the weakness and
credulity which are in the present day termed poetry and faith. It is
curious to observe how these vague theories reduce themselves to the
absurd when brought into practice. There are two Miss Wellwoods here,
daughters of that unfortunate man who fell in a duel with old Sir Guy
Morville, who seem to make it their business to become the general
subject of animadversion, taking pauper children into their house, where
they educate them in a way to unfit them for their station, and teach
them to observe a sort of monastic rule, preaching the poor people in
the hospital to death, visiting the poor at all sorts of strange hours.
Dr Henley actually found one of them, at twelve o'clock at night, in a
miserable lodging-house, filled with the worst description of inmates.
Quite young women, too, and with no mother or elder person to direct
them; but it is the fashion among the attendants at the new chapel to
admire them. This subject has diverted me from what I intended to say
with respect to the young baronet. Your description agrees with all I
have hitherto seen, though I own I expected a Redclyffe Morville to
have more of the "heros de roman", or rather of the grand tragic cast of
figure, as, if I remember right, was the case with this youth's
father, a much finer and handsomer young man. Sir Guy is certainly
gentlemanlike, and has that sort of agreeability which depends on high
animal spirits. I should think him clever, but superficial; and with his
mania for music, he can hardly fail to be merely an accomplished man. In
spite of all you said of the Redclyffe temper, I was hardly prepared to
find it so ready to flash forth on the most inexplicable provocations.
It is like walking on a volcano. I have seen him two or three times draw
himself up, bite his lip, and answer with an effort and a sharpness that
shows how thin a crust covers the burning lava; but I acknowledge that
he has been very civil and attentive, and speaks most properly of what
he owes to you. I only hope he will not be hurt by the possession of so
large a property so early in life, and I have an idea that our good aunt
at Hollywell has done a good deal to raise his opinion of himself. We
shall, of cours