e best."

"Otherwise he would be very bad. But no degree of comparison would
express the difference. Your husband will add an honour to his rank."
She took his hand and kissed it as he said this,--which certainly would
not have been said had not that telegram come direct to the deanery.
"And, looking to the future, which would probably make the better peer
in coming years;--the child born of that man and woman, and bred by
them as they would have bred it, or your child,--yours and your
husband's? And here, in the country,--from which lord would the tenants
receive the stricter justice, and the people the more enduring
kindness? Don't you know that he disgraced his order, and that the
woman was unfit to bear the name which rightly or wrongly she had
assumed? You will be fit."

"No, papa."

"Excuse me, dear. I am praising myself rather than you when I
say,--yes. But though I praise myself it is a matter as to which I have
no shadow of doubt. There can be nothing to regret,--no cause for
sorrow. With the inmates of this house custom demands the decency of
outward mourning;--but there can be no grief of heart. The man was a
wild beast, destroying everybody and everything that came near him.
Only think how he treated your husband."

"He is dead, papa!"

"I thank God that he has gone. I cannot bring myself to lie about it. I
hate such lying. To me it is unmanly. Grief or joy, regrets or
satisfaction, when expressed, should always be true. It is a grand
thing to rise in the world. The ambition to do so is the very salt of
the earth. It is the parent of all enterprise, and the cause of all
improvement. They who know no such ambition are savages and remain
savage. As far as I can see, among us Englishmen such ambition is
healthily and happily almost universal, and on that account we stand
high among the citizens of the world. But, owing to false teaching, men
are afraid to own aloud a truth which is known to their own hearts. I
am not afraid to do so and I would not have you afraid. I am proud that
by one step after another I have been able so to place you and so to
form you that you should have been found worthy of rank much higher
than my own. And I would have you proud also and equally ambitious for
your child. Let him be the Duke of Brotherton. Let him be brought up to
be one of England's statesmen, if God shall give him intellect for the
work. Let him be seen with the George and Garter, and be known
throughout Europe