o hard working
a member of the British aristocracy. But pomposity would be far too
superficial a word to apply to him; it would not adequately connote
his deep-abiding and essential conviction that on one of the days of
Creation (that, probably, on which the decree was made that there should
be Light) there leaped into being the great landowners of England.

But Lord Ashbridge, though himself a peer, by no means accepted the
peerage en bloc as representing the English aristocracy; to be, in
his phrase, "one of us" implied that you belonged to certain
well-ascertained families where brewers and distinguished soldiers
had no place, unless it was theirs already. He was ready to pay all
reasonable homage to those who were distinguished by their abilities,
their riches, their exalted positions in Church and State, but his
homage to such was transfused with a courteous condescension, and he
only treated as his equals and really revered those who belonged to the
families that were "one of us."

His wife, of course, was "one of us," since he would never have
permitted himself to be allied to a woman who was not, though for beauty
and wisdom she might have been Aphrodite and Athene rolled compactly
into one peerless identity. As a matter of fact, Lady Ashbridge had
not the faintest resemblance to either of these effulgent goddesses. In
person she resembled a camel, long and lean, with a drooping mouth and
tired, patient eyes, while in mind she was stunned. No idea other than
an obvious one ever had birth behind her high, smooth forehead, and she
habitually brought conversation to a close by the dry enunciation of
something indubitably true, which had no direct relation to the point
under discussion. But she had faint, ineradicable prejudices, and
instincts not quite dormant. There was a large quantity of mild
affection in her nature, the quality of which may be illustrated by
the fact that when her father died she cried a little every day after
breakfast for about six weeks. Then she did not cry any more. It was
impossible not to like what there was of her, but there was really very
little to like, for she belonged heart and soul to the generation and
the breeding among which it is enough for a woman to be a lady, and
visit the keeper's wife when she has a baby.

But though there was so little of her, the balance was made up for
by the fact that there was so much of her husband. His large, rather
flamboyant person, his big wh