of its exalted
station forbade the House of Vipont to leave its country in the dark.

Great Houses like that of Vipont assist the work of civilization by the
law of their existence. They are sure to have a spirited and wealthy
tenantry, to whom, if but for the sake of that popular character which
doubles political influence, they are liberal and kindly landlords.
Under their sway fens and sands become fertile; agricultural experiments
are tested on a large scale; cattle and sheep improve in breed; national
capital augments, and, springing beneath the ploughshare, circulates
indirectly to speed the ship and animate the loom. Had there been no
Woburn, no Holkham, no Montfort Court, England would be the poorer by
many a million. Our great Houses tend also to the refinement of national
taste; they have their show places, their picture galleries, their
beautiful grounds. The humblest drawing-rooms owe an elegance or
comfort, the smallest garden a flower or esculent, to the importations
which luxury borrowed from abroad, or the inventions it stimulated at
home, for the original benefits of great Houses. Having a fair share of
such merits, in common with other great Houses, the House of Vipont was
not without good qualities peculiar to itself. Precisely because it
was the most egotistical of Houses, filled with the sense of its own
identity, and guided by the instincts of its own conservation, it was
a very civil, good-natured House,--courteous, generous, hospitable; a
House (I mean the head of it, not of course all its subordinate members,
including even the august Lady Selina) that could bow graciously and
shake hands with you. Even if you had no vote yourself, you might have
a cousin who had a vote. And once admitted into the family, the House
adopted you; you had only to marry one of its remotest relations and the
House sent you a wedding present; and at every general election, invited
you to rally round your connection,--the Marquess. Therefore, next
only to the Established Church, the House of Vipont was that British
institution the roots of which were the most widely spread.

Now the Viponts had for long generations been an energetic race.
Whatever their defects, they had exhibited shrewdness and vigour. The
late Marquess (grandfather to the present) had been perhaps the ablest
(that is, done most for the House of Vipont) of them all. Of a grandiose
and superb mode of living; of a majestic deportment; of princely
mann