in
her that "curious charm" noticed by Mr. Hall. He sought her presence
more and more, and at last with a frequency that attested it had become
to him an indispensable stimulus. About this time strange feelings
hovered round Fieldhead; restless hopes and haggard anxieties haunted
some of its rooms. There was an unquiet wandering of some of the inmates
among the still fields round the mansion; there was a sense of
expectancy that kept the nerves strained.

One thing seemed clear: Sir Philip was not a man to be despised. He was
amiable; if not highly intellectual, he was intelligent. Miss Keeldar
could not affirm of him, what she had so bitterly affirmed of Sam Wynne,
that his feelings were blunt, his tastes coarse, and his manners vulgar.
There was sensibility in his nature; there was a very real, if not a
very discriminating, love of the arts; there was the English gentleman
in all his deportment. As to his lineage and wealth, both were, of
course, far beyond her claims.

His appearance had at first elicited some laughing though not
ill-natured remarks from the merry Shirley. It was boyish. His features
were plain and slight, his hair sandy, his stature insignificant. But
she soon checked her sarcasm on this point; she would even fire up if
any one else made uncomplimentary allusion thereto. He had "a pleasing
countenance," she affirmed; "and there was that in his heart which was
better than three Roman noses, than the locks of Absalom or the
proportions of Saul." A spare and rare shaft she still reserved for his
unfortunate poetic propensity; but even here she would tolerate no irony
save her own.

In short, matters had reached a point which seemed fully to warrant an
observation made about this time by Mr. Yorke to the tutor, Louis.

"Yond' brother Robert of yours seems to me to be either a fool or a
madman. Two months ago I could have sworn he had the game all in his own
hands; and there he runs the country, and quarters himself up in London
for weeks together, and by the time he comes back he'll find himself
checkmated. Louis, 'there is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken
at the flood, leads on to fortune, but, once let slip, never returns
again.' I'd write to Robert, if I were you, and remind him of that."

"Robert had views on Miss Keeldar?" inquired Louis, as if the idea was
new to him.

"Views I suggested to him myself, and views he might have realized, for
she liked him."

"As a neighbour?"