admirable. He had been, needless to say, an eldest son. It was his
individual conviction that individualism had ruined England, and he had
set himself deliberately to eradicate this vice from the character of
his tenants. By substituting for their individualism his own tastes,
plans, and sentiments, one might almost say his own individualism, and
losing money thereby, he had gone far to demonstrate his pet theory that
the higher the individualism the more sterile the life of the community.
If, however, the matter was thus put to him he grew both garrulous
and angry, for he considered himself not an individualist, but what he
called a "Tory Communist." In connection with his agricultural interests
he was naturally a Fair Trader; a tax on corn, he knew, would make all
the difference in the world to the prosperity of England. As he often
said: "A tax of three or four shillings on corn, and I should be farming
my estate at a profit."

Mr. Pendyce had other peculiarities, in which he was not too individual.
He was averse to any change in the existing order of things, made lists
of everything, and was never really so happy as when talking of himself
or his estate. He had a black spaniel dog called John, with a long nose
and longer ears, whom he had bred himself till the creature was not
happy out of his sight.

In appearance Mr. Pendyce was rather of the old school, upright and
active, with thin side-whiskers, to which, however, for some years past
he had added moustaches which drooped and were now grizzled. He wore
large cravats and square-tailed coats. He did not smoke.

At the head of his dining-table loaded with flowers and plate, he sat
between the Hon. Mrs. Winlow and Mrs. Jaspar Bellew, nor could he
have desired more striking and contrasted supporters. Equally tall,
full-figured, and comely, Nature had fixed between these two women a
gulf which Mr. Pendyce, a man of spare figure, tried in vain to fill.
The composure peculiar to the ashen type of the British aristocracy
wintered permanently on Mrs. Winlow's features like the smile of a
frosty day. Expressionless to a degree, they at once convinced the
spectator that she was a woman of the best breeding. Had an expression
ever arisen upon these features, it is impossible to say what might have
been the consequences. She had followed her nurse's adjuration: "Lor,
Miss Truda, never you make a face--You might grow so!" Never since that
day had Gertrude Winlow, an Honour