is vices. And he had a special
gallantry of which it is hard to say whether it is or is not to be
admired. They told him that he was like to die,--very like to die, if
he did not change his manner of living. Would he go to Algiers for a
period? Certainly not. He would do no such thing. If he died, there
was his brother John left to succeed him. And the fear of death never
cast a cloud over that grandly beautiful brow. They had all been
short-lived,--the Eustaces. Consumption had swept a hecatomb of
victims from the family. But still they were grand people, and never
were afraid of death.

And then Sir Florian fell in love. Discussing this matter with his
brother, who was perhaps his only intimate friend, he declared that
if the girl he loved would give herself to him, he would make what
atonement he could to her for his own early death by a princely
settlement. John Eustace, who was somewhat nearly concerned in
the matter, raised no objection to this proposal. There was ever
something grand about these Eustaces. Sir Florian was a grand
gentleman; but surely he must have been dull of intellect, slow of
discernment, blear-eyed in his ways about the town, when he took
Lizzie Greystock,--of all the women whom he could find in the
world,--to be the purest, the truest, and the noblest. It has been
said of Sir Florian that he did not believe in virtue. He freely
expressed disbelief in the virtue of women around him,--in the virtue
of women of all ranks. But he believed in his mother and sisters as
though they were heaven-born; and he was one who could believe in his
wife as though she were the queen of heaven. He did believe in Lizzie
Greystock, thinking that intellect, purity, truth, and beauty, each
perfect in its degree, were combined in her. The intellect and beauty
were there;--but, for the purity and truth--; how could it have been
that such a one as Sir Florian Eustace should have been so blind!

Sir Florian was not, indeed, a clever man; but he believed himself
to be a fool. And believing himself to be a fool, he desired, nay,
painfully longed, for some of those results of cleverness which
might, he thought, come to him, from contact with a clever woman.
Lizzie read poetry well, and she read verses to him,--sitting very
near to him, almost in the dark, with a shaded lamp throwing its
light on her book. He was astonished to find how sweet a thing was
poetry. By himself he could never read a line, but as it came from