home and society at North
Aston, the week after Leam returned Edgar Harrowby came from India,
and took up his position as the owner of the Hill estate; and the
child Fina was brought to Ford House, and formally invested with
her new name and condition as Miss Fina Dundas, Sebastian's younger
daughter. Mindful of the past, Mr. Dundas expected to have a stormy
scene with Leam when he told her his intentions respecting poor
madame's child; but Leam answered quietly, "Very well, papa," and
greeted Fina when she arrived benevolently, if not effusively. She was
not one of those born mothers who love babies from their early nursery
days, but she was kind to the child in her grave way, and seemed
anxious to do well by her.

The ladies all bestowed on her their nursery recipes and systems
in rich abundance--especially Mrs. Birkett, who, though glad to be
relieved from the hourly task of watching and contending, was still
immensely interested in the little creature, and gave daily counsel
and superintendence. So that on the whole Leam was not left unaided
with her charge. On the contrary, she ran great risk of being
bewildered by her multiplicity of counselors, and of entering in
consequence on that zigzag course which covers much ground and makes
but little progress.

CHAPTER XXII.

EDGAR HARROWBY.

Thirty-two years of age; tall, handsome, well set-up, and every inch
a soldier; manly in bearing, but also with that grace of gesture and
softness of speech which goes by the name of polished manner; a
bold sportsman, ignorant of physical fear, to whom England was the
culmination of the universe, and such men as he--gentlemen, officers,
squires--the culmination of humanity; a man who loved women as
creatures, but despised them as intelligences; who respected socially
the ladies of his own class, and demanded that they should be without
stain, as befits the wives and mothers and sisters of gentlemen, but
who thought women of a meaner grade fair game for the roving fowler; a
conservative, holding to elemental differences whence arise the value
of races, the dignity of family and the righteousness of caste; an
hereditary landowner, regarding landed property as a sacred possession
meant only for the few and not to be suffered to lapse into low-born
hands; a gentleman, incapable of falsehood, treachery, meanness,
social dishonor, but not incapable of injustice, tyranny, selfishness,
even cruelty, if such came in his way as