a Foxleigh would put it, "hardly a Johnny of the lot could shoot or ride
for nuts." There was no species of beast, bird, or fish, that he could
not and did not destroy with equal skill and enjoyment. The only thing
against him was his income, which was very small. He had taken in Mrs.
Brandwhite, to whom, however, he talked but little, leaving her to
General Pendyce, her neighbour on the other side.

Had he been born a year before his brother, instead of a year after,
Charles Pendyce would naturally have owned Worsted Skeynes, and
Horace would have gone into the Army instead. As it was, having almost
imperceptibly become a Major-General, he had retired, taking with him
his pension. The third brother, had he chosen to be born, would have
gone into the Church, where a living awaited him; he had elected
otherwise, and the living had passed perforce to a collateral branch.
Between Horace and Charles, seen from behind, it was difficult to
distinguish. Both were spare, both erect, with the least inclination to
bottle shoulders, but Charles Pendyce brushed his hair, both before and
behind, away from a central parting, and about the back of his still
active knees there was a look of feebleness. Seen from the front they
could readily be differentiated, for the General's whiskers broadened
down his cheeks till they reached his moustaches, and there was in his
face and manner a sort of formal, though discontented, effacement, as of
an individualist who has all his life been part of a system, from which
he has issued at last, unconscious indeed of his loss, but with a vague
sense of injury. He had never married, feeling it to be comparatively
useless, owing to Horace having gained that year on him at the start,
and he lived with a valet close to his club in Pall Mall.

In Lady Maiden, whom he had taken in to dinner, Worsted Skeynes
entertained a good woman and a personality, whose teas to Working Men in
the London season were famous. No Working Man who had attended them
had ever gone away without a wholesome respect for his hostess. She was
indeed a woman who permitted no liberties to be taken with her in any
walk of life. The daughter of a Rural Dean, she appeared at her best
when seated, having rather short legs. Her face was well-coloured, her
mouth, firm and rather wide, her nose well-shaped, her hair dark. She
spoke in a decided voice, and did not mince her words. It was to her
that her husband, Sir James, owed his reactiona