d, and was not disposed to abate one jot
of them. He was not loud in demanding them. As he went through the
world he sent no trumpeters to the right or left, proclaiming that
the Earl De Guest was coming. When he spread his board for his
friends, which he did but on rare occasions, he entertained them
simply with a mild, tedious, old-fashioned courtesy. We may say that,
if properly treated, the earl never walked over anybody. But he
could, if ill-treated, be grandly indignant; and if attacked, could
hold his own against all the world. He knew himself to be every
inch an earl, pottering about after his oxen with his muddy gaiters
and red cheeks, as much as though he were glittering with stars in
courtly royal ceremonies among his peers at Westminster,--ay, more an
earl than any of those who use their nobility for pageant purposes.
Woe be to him who should mistake that old coat for a badge of rural
degradation! Now and again some unlucky wight did make such a
mistake, and had to do his penance very uncomfortably.

With the earl lived a maiden sister, the Lady Julia. Bernard Dale's
father had, in early life, run away with one sister, but no suitor
had been fortunate enough to induce the Lady Julia to run with him.
Therefore she still lived, in maiden blessedness, as mistress of
Guestwick Manor; and as such had no mean opinion of the high position
which destiny had called upon her to fill. She was a tedious, dull,
virtuous old woman, who gave herself infinite credit for having
remained all her days in the home of her youth, probably forgetting,
in her present advanced years, that her temptations to leave it had
not been strong or numerous. She generally spoke of her sister Fanny
with some little contempt, as though that poor lady had degraded
herself in marrying a younger brother. She was as proud of her own
position as was the earl her brother, but her pride was maintained
with more of outward show and less of inward nobility. It was hardly
enough for her that the world should know that she was a De Guest,
and therefore she had assumed little pompous ways and certain airs of
condescension which did not make her popular with her neighbours.

The intercourse between Guestwick Manor and Allington was not very
frequent or very cordial. Soon after the running away of the Lady
Fanny, the two families had agreed to acknowledge their connection
with each other, and to let it be known by the world that they were
on friendly terms