ls, with Bernard and Crosbie. Their
object was to pay two visits,--one to their very noble and highly
exalted ally, the Lady Julia De Guest; and the other to their humbler
and better known friend, Mrs Eames. As Guestwick Manor lay on their
road into the town, they performed the grander ceremony the first.
The present Earl De Guest, brother of that Lady Fanny who ran away
with Major Dale, was an unmarried nobleman, who devoted himself
chiefly to the breeding of cattle. And as he bred very good cattle,
taking infinite satisfaction in the employment, devoting all his
energies thereto, and abstaining from all prominently evil courses,
it should be acknowledged that he was not a bad member of society.
He was a thorough-going old Tory, whose proxy was always in the hand
of the leader of his party; and who seldom himself went near the
metropolis, unless called thither by some occasion of cattle-showing.
He was a short, stumpy man, with red cheeks and a round face; who was
usually to be seen till dinner-time dressed in a very old shooting
coat, with breeches, gaiters, and very thick shoes. He lived
generally out of doors, and was almost as great in the preserving
of game as in the breeding of oxen. He knew every acre of his own
estate, and every tree upon it, as thoroughly as a lady knows the
ornaments in her drawing-room. There was no gap in a fence of which
he did not remember the exact bearings, no path hither or thither as
to which he could not tell the why and the wherefore. He had been
in his earlier years a poor man as regarded his income,--very poor,
seeing that he was an earl. But he was not at present by any means an
impoverished man, having been taught a lesson by the miseries of his
father and grandfather, and having learned to live within his means.
Now, as he was going down the vale of years, men said that he was
becoming rich, and that he had ready money to spend,--a position in
which no Lord De Guest had found himself for many generations back.
His father and grandfather had been known as spendthrifts; and now
men said that this earl was a miser.

There was not much of nobility in his appearance; but they greatly
mistook Lord De Guest who conceived that on that account his pride of
place was not dear to his soul. His peerage dated back to the time of
King John, and there were but three lords in England whose patents
had been conferred before his own. He knew what privileges were due
to him on behalf of his bloo