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 PEEFEEMENT : 
 
 OR, 
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 
 
 BY MRS. GORE, 
 
 AUTHORESS OF 
 
 "MRS. ARMYTAGE," " STOKESHILL PLACE,' 
 
 ETC. ETC. 
 
 That man, though in rags, who is capable of deceiving indolence into 
 wisdom, and who, whUe professing to amuse, aims at reformation, is more 
 useful to society than twenty cardinals in all their scarlet, tricked out with 
 the fopperies of scholastic finery. — Oliver Goi-dsmith. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 HENEY COLBUEN, PUBLISHEE, 
 
 GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 
 
 1840.
 
 T, C. Savill, Printer, 107, St. Mai tin's Lane.
 
 
 i 
 1 
 
 A PEEFERMENT; 
 
 OR) 
 
 VrT" MY UNCLE THE EARL. 
 
 ^ CHAPTER 1. 
 
 (I 
 
 3 A man that fortune's buffets and rewards 
 
 ^ Hath ta'en with equal thanks. 
 
 c) Shakspeare. 
 
 (5 
 
 In certain times and places, considerable dis- 
 Lf tinction is conferred by the prefix of " Honour- 
 c able." Among the glittering mobs of a London 
 CO season, Honourables are '' as plenty as black- 
 ^ berries ;'' and amid the festal splendours of the 
 y^ new reign, a hall full of Honourables is be- 
 ginning to excite as little emotion as Napoleon's 
 
 
 antechamber of kings. But at Bath, at Brigh- 
 ton, and still more at the host of minor water- 
 cv ing places, an Honourable maintains unimpugn- 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 preferment; or, 
 
 able precedency, as a scion of the aristocracy 
 of the kingdom. His lady has her place above 
 the salt ; and his sons and daughters are entitled 
 to look down upon the undistinguishable throng 
 of Thompsons, Smiths, and Browns. 
 
 Nothing could be more obvious than the 
 social advantages derived from this diminutive 
 ennoblement by the Honourable Mr. and Mrs. 
 Egerton, of Hurley House, near Tunbridge 
 Wells ; for though their income of a thousand 
 a-year enabled them to provide but indifferently 
 for a family of four children, the distinction 
 which pointed them out as the brother and 
 sister-in-law of the Earl of Tiverton, conferred 
 the privilege of dining with all the parks, halls, 
 and castles in the neighbourhood, without 
 giving dinners in return : the younger son of an 
 earl having a right to be poor without danger of 
 becoming disreputable. 
 
 As a component item of the Order, Egerton's 
 company shed a grace upon plebeian society : 
 while on the other hand, scarcely a royal per- 
 sonage or nolile family ordered by the Lon- 
 don faculty to refresh their health upon the
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 3 
 
 heights of Mount Ephraim, but came armed 
 with an introduction to '' some very respectable 
 people, living in the neighbourhood, (relatives 
 of Lord Tiverton,) who would be delighted 
 to make themselves useful." The Egertons 
 were, in short, privileged to move in circles 
 from which persons of greater consequence stood 
 excluded ; and thus the title of Honourable was 
 worth full five hundred a-year in the sum total 
 of their belongings. 
 
 But if indebted to his hereditary honours for 
 the advantage of admission into the more digni- 
 fied tea-drinkings and whist-playings of Tun- 
 bridge Wells, William Egerton had also to re- 
 proach them with the evils of a premature and 
 improvident marriage. Lord Tiverton's second 
 son had committed the not very rare indiscretion 
 of marrying the daughter of his tutor ! In 
 placing his two younger incumbrances under the 
 care of his chaplain, Dr. Spry of Helstone Par- 
 sonage, his lordship had thought it necessary to 
 state that, as their fortunes would not exceed 
 twenty thousand pounds, they must be prepared 
 by a solid education to make their way in the 
 
 b2
 
 4 preferment; or, 
 
 world ; and though it cannot be supposed that the 
 learned divine's blindness to the attentions of his 
 pupil William to his daughter Olivia was either 
 wilful or interested. Lord Tiverton was harsh 
 enough to assert, on learning their engagement, 
 that a son of his with even half the money was 
 a match to have been eagerly caught up by a 
 Miss Olivia Spry. 
 
 But though the Earl might storm, he was 
 unable to disinherit. The rights conferred by 
 that charter of filial disobedience, a marriage 
 settlement, were immutable ; and in defiance of 
 his patron's indignation, the old doctor, who 
 could give nothing else to the young couple, 
 bestowed upon them the nuptial benediction. 
 
 Lord Tiverton had certainly some cause for 
 displeasure. The Mentor he had so unwisely 
 selected for his son, too intent upon advancing 
 the interests of his daughter to bring the charms 
 of the tuneful nine into competition with those 
 of Miss Olivia, had forborne to irritate his future 
 son-in-law by drilling him into even a moderate 
 degree of scholarship. The young lover was 
 fated to grow an old dunce ; and in addition to
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 5 
 
 the annoyance inflicted upon his family by his 
 precocious marriage, William Egerton signified 
 to Lord Tiverton, who abounded in church pro- 
 perty and ministerial patronage, that he was too 
 conscious of his deficiencies, and too well satis- 
 fied with his pretty wife and moderate income, 
 to derange his httle household by completing his 
 education at the University. Lost in uxorious 
 ease, he seemed to luxuriate in the prospect of 
 becoming a nobody ; and the Earl shuddered at 
 the thoughts of the poor, mediocre, indolent, 
 obscure, useless. Honourable Mr. Egerton, of 
 whom he saw himself condemned to become 
 the father. His letter forbidding the offenders 
 ever again to approach the gates of Tiverton 
 Castle was a model of paternal eloquence. 
 
 Disappointed in the expectation of shining in 
 fashionable life instilled into her mind by a 
 worldly-minded father and elder sister, young 
 Mrs. Egerton resigned herself to the pro- 
 jects of domestic happiness suggested by her 
 husband. Instead of the house in town and 
 presentation at court, hitherto inseparable in her 
 imagination from an alliance with the son of an
 
 6 PREFERMENT ; OR, 
 
 earl, she gradually tamed down her ambition to 
 a long lease of Hurley House, near Tunbridge 
 Wells, within twenty miles of her father's parson- 
 age; and retired thither with her husband to 
 cultivate economy and their spreading olive 
 branches, in measureless content. 
 
 But in this modest sphere of life, the Eger- 
 tons became happier and more valuable people 
 than if their original object had been accom- 
 plished, of contending, amid the turmoil of 
 London, with the folhes of their equals in birth 
 and superiors in fortune. With an unexceeded 
 income, good health, and good temper, they ex- 
 perienced none of the heartburnings which end 
 in domestic bickerings and public contempt. 
 Neither envy nor strife embittered their cheerful 
 fireside. Egerton amused himself by cultivat- 
 ing the twenty acres of land and old-fashioned 
 gardens attached to Hurley House ; while 
 Olivia, who, in a gayer circle would have frit- 
 tered away her days in novel-reading and super- 
 ficial accomplishments, became a notable house- 
 wife, an active mother, and a benevolent neigh- 
 bour. It was impossible to be better kind of
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 
 
 people than the Egertons; and, except that 
 OHvia found herself honoured with the right 
 hand corner of the sofa in the various cottages 
 of gentility scattered in the environs of the 
 Wells, and that it was impossible to overlook 
 the pompous superscription of the letters occa- 
 sionally addressed to her by her sister, Miss 
 Rachel Spry, she would scarcely have remem- 
 bered her style and title of " Honourable." 
 
 The well-being of the contented little family 
 was destined, however, to vicissitude. Some 
 domestic crisis or other in the house of Egerton, 
 — the dangerous illness of the Earl, — an entail 
 to be cut off, or the loss of a younger daughter, 
 — no matter what, — at length induced Lord 
 Tiverton to relent, unsolicited, in favour of the 
 happy couple at Hurley House ; and the Eger- 
 tons not only received a free and voluntary 
 pardon, but were invited to spend a month at 
 the Castle. As if resolved, however, to tax to 
 the utmost the graciousness conceded, they 
 decided that it was impossible to undertake a 
 journey of two-hundred miles, leaving their 
 children to the care of menials ; and, to the
 
 8 preferment; or, 
 
 horror of the Countess, who had barely sum- 
 moned up patience to welcome her plebeian 
 daughter-in-law, it was found necessary to fit up 
 a nursery for the reception of four healthy, 
 riotous, grand-children. Her own married 
 daughter, the Marchioness of Easthampton, 
 when invited to Tiverton, never took the liberty 
 of bringing her progeny ; the Countess's grand- 
 maternal partiality being notoriously reserved 
 for the two handsome boys of her eldest son, 
 Lord Egerton ; and Mrs. William's rash act 
 served of course to consign her anew to dis- 
 grace. 
 
 Throughout the visit, herself and her family 
 were constantly talked at by her harsh and 
 overbearing mother-in-law. It was misery to 
 her kind heart to see the children mewed and 
 hushed up in their aristocratic prison, debarred 
 their usual indulgence of shouting, singing, and 
 quarrelling, to their hearts' content; and she 
 could scarcely conceal her sympathy in the ex- 
 ultation of her old nurse, who, on the last day 
 of their sojourn at the Castle, went flouncing up 
 and down the corridors, with audible ejaculations
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 9 
 
 that " thank God, the poor dear babes were now 
 going to a place where they would be treated 
 like Christians." 
 
 But the old nurse was no wiser than became 
 her calling. At Helstone Parsonage, whither 
 the Egertons repaired immediately after their 
 visit to the Castle, the little Egertons, instead of 
 being treated like Christians, were worshipped 
 as divinities. Old Dr. Spry almost respected 
 his daughter's offspring, as being also the grand- 
 children of an earl ; and lightly as she was held, 
 and irreverently used, by the Egerton family, 
 fancied she had advanced herself in the world 
 by allying herself beyond her natural sphere. 
 
 In his youth, the doctor had officiated as 
 domestic tutor to the sons of the Duke of 
 Pelham; and on receiving in requital for his 
 services the living of Helstone, had retired from 
 office by marrying the governess of his grace's 
 daughters, of whom the Countess of Tiverton 
 was one. His subservience to the great was 
 consequently an official failing. He stood in 
 humble reverence of the peerage in general, and 
 any one pertaining to his patron in particular; 
 
 b3
 
 10 preferment; or, 
 
 and if he had adventured the resentment of Lady 
 Tiverton by making her ladyship's son his son- 
 in-law, it was chiefly through undue estimation of 
 the young gentleman's importance in the world. 
 The ex-tutor had not the self-denial to allow 
 what he considered the glorification of his 
 family to slip through his hands. 
 
 Even after William Egerton had been cast 
 off by his family and while he was still labouring 
 under his father's anathema. Dr. Spry never 
 failed to comfort Olivia with assurances that 
 " for a man so highly connected as Lord 
 Tiverton's son, sooner or later something must 
 be done." He seemed to fancy that Providence 
 or government would rain down mitres or full- 
 bottomed wigs upon poor Egerton, while hoeing 
 his turnips or getting in his hay at Hurley 
 House ; and, like the French souhrette, who 
 believed that though she had no ticket in the 
 lottery, '* le hasard" might still assign her a 
 prize, — imagined that though his son-in-law 
 belonged to no profession, the interest of Lord 
 Tiverton might convert him into a bishop, a 
 chancellor, or a brigadier-general.
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 11 
 
 But now that a partial reconciliation was 
 effected with the Earl, Dr. Spry's elation knew 
 no bounds ; and as Olivia had too tnuch regard 
 for the feelings of her family to relate at the 
 parsonage the treatment she and her children 
 had received from the Tiverton s, her father 
 and sister were prompt in suggesting new 
 schemes of ambition for the aggrandizement of 
 the younger generation at Hurley House. 
 
 " I trust, my dear Livy," said the old gentle- 
 man to Mrs. Egerton, '' that you did not neglect 
 the opportunity afforded by spending six weeks 
 in Lord Tiverton's house, to get something done 
 for the boys? — His lordship, my dear, has 
 wonderful patronage ! It was said when he 
 married Lady Alicia Pelham, that he had three 
 thousand a year in the church ! There was a 
 time, indeed, when it seemed likely some of his 
 lordship's preferment might fall my way. But 
 poor William's unlucky attachment — (ahem !) 
 — I don't mean to reproach you, my dear, — 
 more especially if you have been wise enough to 
 secure something for your sons." 
 
 '* The boys are still so young," pleaded Mrs. 
 Egerton.
 
 12 preferment; or, 
 
 '' John is in Ovid, my dear. It is high time 
 his future interests should be considered." 
 
 " I fear, poor fellow, he did little to advance 
 them during his stay at Tiverton ! It was such 
 sad confinement for him at the Castle, that, 
 whenever he could manage to make his escape, 
 he was off with the keepers ; and William was 
 foolish enough to boast one day at dinner that 
 the boy was a capital shot, and had that morning 
 bagged two brace of pheasants ! Now you know 
 that if there is a thing on earth about which 
 Lord Tiverton is particular, it is preserving his 
 game. I thought we should never have heard 
 the last of poor John's unlucky feat !" 
 
 "It ought, on the contrary, to have convinced 
 his lordship that the lad is of an age to be pro- 
 vided for. What has the Earl to do with his 
 preferment ? Lord Egerton has only two sons, 
 one of whom will succeed to the estate, and the 
 other to the borough. What the deuce is the 
 church to them ?" 
 
 *' Lord Egerton has several daughters, — his 
 youngest child, you know, is only a year old ; so 
 that he may still have abundance of younger 
 sons to enter the clerical profession."
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 13 
 
 '* The more reason for nailinoj Lord Tiverton 
 for one of his livings while you have a chance." 
 
 " At present, I fear we are scarcely on suffi- 
 ciently good terms to propose such a thing. 
 Besides, how are we ever to afford the boys a 
 college education ?" 
 
 ** Leave that to me, Livy !'* cried the old 
 doctor, warmed to the utmost expansion by 
 seeing himself, in his mind's eye, grandfather to 
 the future rector of the rich living of Wynd- 
 ham, " the reverend John Egerton — archdea- 
 con, dean, bishop — archbishop," who could say? 
 And from that day he most unexpectedly took 
 upon himself the expense of maintaining little 
 Jack at Winchester, as an initiatory step to 
 qualify him for the dignities of the buzzwig !
 
 14 preferment; or, 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Oui, j'habite, en effet, un singulier sejour, 
 Car on y dort la nuit, et Ton y veille le jour. 
 Les fills dans mon pays respectent lems parens, 
 On n'imagine point tout savoir a vingt ans ; 
 Aimer de bonne foi n'est point un ridicule ; 
 De s'enrichir trop vite on se fait un scrupule ; 
 Sans briller, il suffit qu'on ne doive rien; 
 On s'aime, — on vit content, — et on se porte bien ! 
 
 Cresset. 
 
 Fathers are proverbially said to be blind ; 
 but grandfathers do not always distinguish 
 themselves by their perspicacity. The eldest 
 boy, selected by Dr. Spry by right of primo- 
 geniture to become a learned divine, was of 
 Egerton's three sons decidedly the least quali- 
 fied for the distinction. John Egerton grew 
 up a good-humoured, good-looking, popular lad, 
 the image of his father, — and consequently
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 15 
 
 very far from disposed to fag for a degree or 
 pretend to a living. 
 
 Julius, the second son, on the contrary, who, 
 being less robust than his brothers, had spent 
 his childhood at Helstone Parsonage and his 
 boyhood at a country foundation-school in its 
 vicinity, for the advantage of the wholesome 
 breezes of the Sussex coast, was a shy, reserved 
 child, of whom his preceptors predicted won- 
 ders ; and though much of the admiration ex- 
 cited by his schoolboy verses might arise from 
 want of the competition which would scarcely 
 have allowed them to pass current at Eton, as 
 well as from his being, as the son of the Honour- 
 able Mr. Egerton, the phoenix of. the country 
 schoolmaster, his aunt. Miss Rachel Spry, and 
 all the tabbies of her tea table, foresaw in him 
 an embryo Heber, and proclaimed a future 
 Milman. It was already a source of deep 
 affliction to the officious spinster that her 
 favourite nephew was not destined to the vest 
 and cassock, in place of his idle, sauntering, 
 elder brother. 
 
 Harry Egerton, the youngest, was already
 
 16 preferment; or, 
 
 undergoing the sentence usually pronounced 
 upon sprightly refractory boys. Too turbulent 
 for the narrow limits of Hurley House, he 
 had been sent to Gosport, and disposed of in 
 the nav'y; and the rebellious school boy was 
 now a smart promising midshipman, of whom 
 his parents saw little more than his captain's 
 half-yearly receipts, and his own letters from 
 various quarters of the globe, differing curiously 
 in shape and orthography, and occasionally 
 smelling of quarantine. 
 
 For several years succeeding the unlucky 
 visit which served to introduce the little Eger- 
 tons to their noble grandfather and his pheasants, 
 an invitatioHL to the Castle had been annually 
 despatched to their father, — the Hon. William, 
 by himself, William, — without further allusion 
 to his wife or offspring, which was regularly and 
 conscientiously declined. Egerton entertained 
 the highest respect and affection for the woman 
 who consulted the failings of her indolent hus- 
 band so far as to take even the trouble of 
 householding and son-training off his hands; 
 and he was resolved never again to set foot in
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 17 
 
 his father's house till Mrs. Egerton and little 
 Mary were included in the invitation. 
 
 In this decision, however, Helstone Rectory 
 pronounced him to be wrong. Helstone Rec- 
 tory assured him that his first object in life 
 ought to be the advancement of his sons ; and 
 that it was his duty to honour and obey the 
 Earl his father, even if the Earl his father did 
 not choose to honour and invite his wife. 
 
 Egerton thought otherwise. Albeit of anything 
 but a resisting turn of mind, he adhered to his 
 original determination. It was only when, just 
 as John attained his eighteenth and Julius his 
 seventeenth year, and their parents were sorely • 
 puzzled in what way to provide for their future 
 fortunes, an invitation arrived for the two elder 
 boys to pass the winter at Tiverton Castle, that 
 the entreaties of the young Wintonian, and the 
 remonstrances of Miss Rachel Spry, induced 
 their good-natured father to withdraw his oppo- 
 sition so far as regarded the young men. Though 
 Lord and Lady Tiverton persisted in their un- 
 graciousness to poor Olivia, it was a step towards 
 improvement that they deigned to acknowledge 
 the claims of their grandsons.
 
 18 preferment; or, 
 
 Mr. Egerton decided in his own mind, as he 
 mused over the affair on the eve of his sons' 
 departure for the Castle, that his father and 
 mother, who were now advancing in hfe, were 
 growing more conscientious, more seriotls in 
 their views, and felt reluctant that their latter 
 days should be uncheered by the society of their 
 children's children. The occasional answers to 
 the letters of ceremony addressed to his wife by 
 the Countess tended to prove that her ladyship 
 had never overcome her disgust at being obliged 
 to sign herself " affectionate mother-in-law" 
 to the daughter of her former governess ; but it 
 was to be hoped that the voice of nature was at 
 length stirring up her affections towards her 
 grand-children. 
 
 So ill-founded, however, were the good man's 
 Christianly conjectures, that the invitation des- 
 patched to the young Egertons originated solely 
 in a pique against Lady Egerton and her family. 
 The old Countess having taken offence against 
 the wife and children of her eldest son, chose 
 to raise up in opposition the children of her 
 second ; and it was an unexpected consolation 
 that the good looks and manners of John, and
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 19 
 
 the superior endowments of Julius, enabled her 
 to set them up as dangerous rivals to Claude and 
 Dick Egerton, in the favour of their almost 
 doting grandfather. 
 
 Unconscious of her object, the Hurley lads 
 fell readily into the snare. With the freedom 
 of a public schoolboy, John was soon at home 
 at the Castle ; and though the more silent 
 habits of Julius rendered the life he was now 
 leading a life of penance, he found ample 
 compensation in his solitary rambles through 
 the fine park and forest scenery of the neigh- 
 bourhood. His letters to his sister Mary 
 abounded in descriptions of the beauties of Tiver- 
 ton, and of the favour enjoyed by their brother. 
 Preserves, keepers, kennels, stables, all were at 
 John's disposal. He was allowed to invite what 
 friends, and order what battues he pleased ; and 
 the old Doctor and Miss Rachel were almost jus- 
 tified in suggesting to Egerton and his wife that 
 Jack's fortune was evidently made. 
 
 Advice was immediately poured in upon the 
 young gentleman, both from Helstone Parsonage 
 and Hurley House. His grandfather and aunt
 
 20 preferment; or, 
 
 wrote to entreat him, in homely phrase, to make 
 hay while the sun shone ; his mother, to beg he 
 would remember his younger brothers ; his 
 father, to beg that he would not forget himself. 
 But while they were still awaiting answers to 
 their letters, in anxious hope of confirmation of 
 Julius's reports, the London coach stopped one 
 morning at the gate of Hurley House, to deposit 
 the portmanteaus and persons of the two crest- 
 fallen young men. 
 
 In spite of the hesitation of Julius, and the 
 ill-timed laughter of John, in attempting an 
 explanation of their abrupt reappearance, it 
 was clear they were come back in disgrace. 
 It was admitted by both, that nothing could 
 exceed the partiality of which they had been at 
 first the object. The old Countess had seemed 
 to take delight in devoting her purse and her 
 authority at the Castle to the gratification of 
 their whims ; till one unlucky day, tidings 
 having reached Lord Tiverton of the demise of 
 the rector of Wyndham, her ladyship so far ex- 
 tended her patronage as to signify to her elder 
 grandson that she intended him for the church ;
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 21 
 
 that Wyndham and its fourteen hundred pounds 
 a-year were eventually to be his; and that Lord 
 Tiverton would undertake the cost of sending 
 him to college. 
 
 *' I had much rather he would undertake the 
 cost of sending me into the army," was John 
 Eger ton's rash reply. " My mind is set upon 
 being a soldier; and as to going into the church, 
 I would as soon be a packhorse as a parson." 
 
 Struck dumb by this presumptuous opposi- 
 tion on the part of an indigent grandson, the 
 Countess set no bounds to her resentment. In 
 threatening him with the finest of the family 
 livings, she fancied she was providing not only 
 nobly but in the manner most acceptable, for a 
 descendant in whose veins her own blood was 
 ignominiously commingled with that of a Dr. 
 Spry. Had she sentenced one of the sons of her 
 son William to become a custom-house officer, 
 she would have exacted implicit obedience ; but 
 that John should imagine himself so far en- 
 dowed with an eldest son's privilege of rebellion 
 as to refuse the provision he was thus insolently 
 rejecting, added insult to injury. Lord Eger-
 
 22 preferment; or, 
 
 ton's sons could not have done worse. Lord 
 Egerton's sons had, in fact, done nothing half so 
 bad. Without deigning to remonstrate, without 
 deigning even to reprimand, she motioned the 
 ungrateful rebel from her sight ; and on the fol- 
 lowing day the two young gentlemen found 
 themselves travelling per mail to London, on 
 their return to Hurley House. 
 
 Nothing could exceed the consternation pro- 
 duced in the little family circle by this alarming 
 explanation. Mrs. Egerton naturally resented 
 the coarse expression by which John had of- 
 fended the ears of the Countess, which she was 
 foolish enough to fancy reflected upon her father 
 rather than upon her son. Little Mary was 
 afraid poor John had irretrievably offended his 
 vindictive grandmother ; while John himself 
 feared only that his rash candour might have in- 
 jured the interests of his brothers and sister. Mr. 
 Egerton alone, consulting his sense of rectitude 
 rather than his temper or his prudence, ap- 
 plauded the resolution formed by his son not to 
 make the house of God the seat of the money- 
 changers, by accepting a family living at the risk
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 23 
 
 of disgracing the national church by a rekictant 
 member. 
 
 In spite of Dr. Spry's reprehensions, and Miss 
 Rachel's harangues, he persisted in this disinter- 
 ested view of the case : even after seeing^ his 
 eldest son lounge avv^ay the ensuing spring and 
 summer at Hurley, resisting all his grandfather's 
 entreaties that he would despatch a letter of sub- 
 mission to the Countess, and, pending her for- 
 giveness, proceed to college and study for a 
 degree. 
 
 The utmost poor William allowed himself to 
 do in reprehension of the contumacy of his 
 eldest born was to admit, with a sigh, his regret 
 that he had ever sanctioned the visit of the two 
 boys to Tiverton Castle. It was plain that 
 three months of luxurious idleness had confirmed 
 the elder in his desultory habits; while, as to 
 Julius, he was come back more strange, more 
 depressed, more silent, than ever. Though the 
 sunshine of favour had not been vouchsafed to 
 him as to the reckless John, the indulgence of 
 his solitary rambles and reflections had served 
 to develop the instincts of an ambitious mind,
 
 24 I>referment; or, 
 
 and to render painfully distasteful the mediocrity 
 of his appointed destinies. 
 
 From his childhood, Julius Egerton had 
 enjoyed the dangerous distinction of being in 
 advance of his family and associates. There 
 was not one among them to whom his young 
 mind could turn for enlightenment. Over- 
 praised and overtasked by his teachers, till his 
 proficiency placed him on bad terms with his 
 schoolfellows, the little fellow became reserved 
 and gloomy; and it was in the consciousness 
 of his mental superiority he naturally took 
 refuge from the ill-usage of his companions. 
 Quizzed by his brother John as a sap, and 
 hoaxed by his brother Harry as a prig, Julius 
 acquired a sort of awkward shyness which, on 
 his arrival at Tiverton Castle, excited the utmost 
 contempt of the Countess. The uncouth boy 
 was allowed to mope away his time in the woods 
 and gardens ; while those who condemned him 
 to this dangerous solitude, took no heed of the 
 struggles working in that over-excited mind. 
 
 The master spirit of his ambitious nature was 
 fostering into giant growth by all he was hearing
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 25 
 
 and seeing at Tiverton. His grandfather's fine 
 old feudal establishment — the noble halls and 
 galleries, pictures and sculptures, — the majestic 
 chapel, the lofty library, the massive plate, the 
 obsequious menials,— -inspired him with undue 
 deference towards the patrician estate which 
 philosophy had hitherto instructed him to 
 regard without wonder, and religion without 
 envy. He began to conceive that equanimity of 
 mind might be a difficult virtue. He saw that 
 the possession of worldly treasures rendered even 
 his ugly ungracious old grandmother an object 
 of respect and veneration. His own awe of her 
 was sensibly increased on beholding her escorted 
 to her splendid equipage by a multitude of hire- 
 lings in livery, while a well-dressed, well-bred 
 groom of the chambers waited humbly upon 
 her bidding; and it was difficult for a boy of 
 his years not to assign overweening value to 
 distinctions which could beautify all that was 
 unseemly, and dignify all that was unamiable. 
 
 The mind of the solitary youth was left to 
 work itself clear between the moral theories 
 inculcated by books, and the practical lessons of 
 
 VOL. I. c
 
 26 preferment; or, 
 
 the world. Julius Egerton knew that it was a 
 noble thing to rise superior to the adventitious 
 distinctions of life, but he felt himself unequal 
 to the achievement. For such magnanimities 
 there might come a time hereafter; at present 
 he was firmly resolved against remaining the 
 obscure younger son of an obscure younger 
 brother. 
 
 With this view, on his return to Hurley 
 House, he set about in such right earnest the 
 completion of his studies, that Aunt Rachel, 
 who took the greatest pride in his proficiency, 
 succeeded, by dint of constant entreaty, in per- 
 suading the Egertons to address a pacificatory 
 letter to the old Countess, entreating that the 
 favours intended for the eldest son might be 
 conceded to his brother. But so fierce was the 
 resentment of the vindictive old woman, that 
 return of post brought back an answer to the 
 petition, requesting to be troubled no further 
 with the affairs of Hurley House, and stating 
 that the living of Wyndham was already given 
 away to the tutor of her promising grandsons, 
 Claude and Dick. After adding that Lord
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 27 
 
 Tiverton's church preferment in general was 
 pledged and promised, she '* advised the William 
 Egertons to make lawyers, physicians, or any- 
 thing else that suited them, of their sons, except 
 parsons or packhorses.'' 
 
 Even Dr. Spry, with all his reliance upon 
 the ascendancy of William Egerton's star, was 
 reduced to despondency by a perusal of this 
 sneering manifesto. He began almost to repent 
 his generosity in having sent John to Win- 
 chester, and bestowed upon Julius in his holi- 
 days such store of gratuitous scholarship. 
 After all, they were perhaps fated to grovel 
 through life in humble mediocrity, like the sons 
 of any other private gentleman in indifferent 
 circumstances with an indifferent understand- 
 ing. 
 
 Accustomed for fifty of his threescore years 
 and ten to teach the ideas of beardless lordlings 
 and younger sons of dukes how to shoot, and to see 
 them prospered in after-life by aristocratic influ- 
 ence in spite of their inefficiency, Dr. Spry was 
 scarcely aware that young men may essentially 
 promote their own advancement in life. Instead 
 
 c2
 
 28 preferment; or, 
 
 of speculating upon the extraordinary abilities 
 of Julius, or stimulating the idle John to exer- 
 tion, he spoke of their ruin as accomplished by 
 the estrangement of Lord and Lady Tiverton. 
 
 " I know the Countess,'' said he. '* It would 
 be odd indeed if the experience of my late 
 wife, added to my own, did not afford me some 
 insight into Lady Alicia Pelham's character; 
 and I am persuaded it would give her pleasure 
 to learn that John Egerton and his brothers 
 were atoning to the utmost his undutiful opposi- 
 tion to her will. It is impossible to possess 
 more strength of character than the Countess ; it 
 is impossible to be more inflexible — more vin- 
 dictive. All is over with the boys ! — Lady Tiver- 
 ton has become their enemy, and not a soul in 
 the family will venture to stand their friend." 
 
 But while Helstone Rectory seemed to forget 
 that there was a will in the world mightier than 
 that of the Countess, so important in its eyes as 
 the daughter and wife of its two august patrons, 
 the Power in whose sight kings are but dust and 
 ashes, was preparing a fearful reverse for the 
 haughty lady of Tiverton Castle. The Earl,
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 29 
 
 whose feeble tenure of life had so long enabled 
 her to legislate in his name, — oppressing his 
 tenants, tyrannizing over his servants, and 
 humiliating his children, — was suddenly called to 
 his account, and his widow reduced to the 
 nothingness of dowager insignificance. Within 
 a week after issuing her thundering anathema 
 against Hurley House, her kingdom was taken 
 from her and given to the Medes and Persians. 
 Condemned to abdicate her throne, she main- 
 tained her dignity by a precipitate departure to 
 her dower-house in town ; and, lo ! Lady 
 Egerton, as the new Countess of Tiverton, 
 reigned in her stead as lady paramount of 
 Tiverton Castle.
 
 30 PREFERMEIST ; OK, 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 When you fall into a man's company, the first thing you 
 should consider is, whether he has a greater inclination to 
 hear you, or that you should hear him. 
 
 Sir Richard Steele. 
 
 The new Earl and Countess of Tiverton were 
 perhaps a degree less unamiable than their pre- 
 decessors ; but their tempers were not improved 
 by having been for twenty years the sport of 
 parental caprice. Sometimes in favour, some- 
 times out, and at all times kept in a state of 
 anxious dependence, it was not likely they 
 should be deeply afflicted by the decease of the 
 valetudinarian Earl, or affectionately disposed 
 towards those surviving members of the family
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 31 
 
 who had been every now and then erected into 
 rivalship by the whims of Tiverton Castle. 
 
 As a matter of decorum, however, William 
 Egerton was invited to bear his part as mourner 
 at the funeral of the deceased Earl ; and as a 
 matter of feeling, he accepted the invitation. 
 His estrangement from his father's house having 
 at times weighed heavily on his mind, he was 
 anxious to pay the last tribute of respect to the 
 memory of one against whom he reproached 
 himself with having sometimes entertained un- 
 filial resentments. He arrived at the Castle on 
 the eve of the day fixed for the interment, 
 thinking more of the father he was come to 
 bury than of the brother or brothers he was to 
 meet ; and on emerging from the hall where 
 the remains of the imbecile old man of seventy- 
 four were lying in state, surrounded by solemn 
 mutes and gaudy escutcheons, he was too much 
 affected to take note of the unexpected gracious- 
 ness of Lord Tiverton's greeting, or his ex- 
 planations that their brother Adolphus, being 
 laid up in London with the gout, was unable to 
 share their melancholy duties.
 
 312 preferment; or, 
 
 Of the said brother Adolphus, indeed, Wil- 
 liam Egerton knew and thought about as little 
 as of the mutes whose crape hat-bands had just 
 been whisked into his eyes. From the period 
 of his marriage all intercourse between them 
 had ceased. Adolphus Egerton, the condisciple 
 of his brother at Helstone Rectory, having early 
 imbibed the utmost detestation of everything 
 appertaining to the name of Spry, had from 
 the first frankly assured poor William that the 
 day which saw him the spouse of the fair Olivia, 
 would be the last of their fraternal friendship, 
 and had kept his word. Not that on either 
 that or any other point he affected to spare the 
 prejudices of his father and mother. His dislike 
 of the Sprys was purely personal, and would 
 have been the same had the Doctor been, instead 
 of his pedagogue, lord chamberlain or master 
 of the rolls. 
 
 On the other hand, the enmity of Adolphus 
 Egerton was of small account, except to the 
 tender conscience of his brother. They never 
 came in contact, seldom even heard of each 
 other. Their orbits were unaccordant : Adolphus
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 33 
 
 being as completely a London man as William 
 a country gentleman. Nor was the latter sur- 
 prised to find that not even so momentous an 
 event as that of consigning a parent to the 
 earth sufficed to unmoor his brother from his 
 anchorage in the parish of St. James, 
 
 " I am here quite alone," v^^as Lord Tiver- 
 ton's salutation to William. " At this season of 
 the year, I would not hear of Lady Tiverton 
 and my daughters hurrying down to the Castle 
 at so unpleasant a moment." 
 
 When, after a silent, solitary dinner, the two 
 brothers found themselves tete-a-tete over their 
 wine, there was something startling in the 
 crisis which, after twenty years' alienation, 
 brought together thus familiarly, within a short 
 distance from the coffin containing the remains 
 of their common parent, — the twain who, forty 
 years before, had sported hand-in-hand in that 
 very room, unapprehensive of the worldly senti- 
 ments which were in after life to render them 
 strangers to each other. Unconsciously Wil- 
 liam Egerton fixed his eyes upon his brother's 
 face, striving to trace in the harsh lineaments 
 
 c 3
 
 34 preferment; or, 
 
 of the man the fair features of the boy ; and if 
 Lord Tiverton refrained from a similar investi- 
 gation, it was because his mind, in no mood for 
 tender reminiscence, was engrossed by the con- 
 fusion of summing up the amount of his newly 
 acquired honours, estates, mortgages, and the 
 post obits against which they were to be 
 balanced. 
 
 They had met at rare intervals in the hurry 
 of a London crowd, and while Lord Egerton 
 was shaking hands with his obscure brother, he 
 had of course noted that poor William was 
 growing stout and his hair gray. But there 
 was nothing more to be thought or said about 
 the matter ; and could the new Earl have 
 imagined what was passing in his brother's 
 mind, as they sat opposite to each other at table, 
 he would have called him a weak, nervous, 
 foolish fellow, and pressed him to take another 
 glass of wine ; just as Miss Rachel Spry would 
 have shrugged her shoulders with wonder that 
 at such a moment he should be thinking of any- 
 thing but a provision for his sons. 
 
 " I fear I shall be obliged to hurry back to
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 35 
 
 town to-morrow the moment this melancholy 
 business is over," observed Lord Tiverton, 
 breaking their embarrassing silence. "I have 
 so much on my hands that I scarcely know 
 which way to turn. My father has left every- 
 thing upon my shoulders ! I find I am sole 
 executor, residuary legatee, saddled v;ith all 
 imaginable plagues and troubles. Not, however, 
 that the will leaves me much to do. The por- 
 tions of the younger children under my mother's 
 marriage settlement were paid off, as you are 
 aware, on their severally coming of age ; and 
 being all happily settled in life, my poor father 
 has not thought it necessary to do more for 
 them by his testamentary dispositions. There 
 are pensions to the old servants, and legacies for 
 rings to old Doubledose, and Latitat and his 
 partner. My mother has her jointure, and 
 twenty thousand pounds in lieu of personalty. 
 These are the heads of the will ; but if you feel 
 any curiosity about the matter, it may be seen 
 by applying to Latitat, in London. Smith, of 
 Penrith, took it off to town last night by the 
 mail, preparatory to probate."
 
 36 preferment; or, 
 
 '' Thank you. As my name is not mentioned, 
 I have no particular interest in the perusal," 
 replied William, in a mortified tone. " I did 
 sometimes hope my father might do something 
 for the boys." 
 
 " In the manner his estates were tied up, I 
 don't see how it was possible. And if I recol- 
 lect, he always assured you that in the event 
 of your fulfilling your engagement to old Spry's 
 daughter, he would never give you a shilling !" 
 
 " The lapse of twenty years might have sub- 
 dued his animosity," replied William, gravely. 
 " God knows we never molested him. Olivia 
 has turned out an exemplary wife, my sons are 
 fine young men. To be sure, John was so un- 
 fortunate as to olFend his grandmother." 
 
 " So I understood. Just as my boy Dick 
 managed to affront her by preferring a cruise in 
 the Mediterranean to escorting her to Buxton. 
 As if anything else was to be expected of a 
 spirited young fellow of his age ! By the way," 
 continued Lord Tiverton, warming and assuming 
 a confidential tone the moment the conversation 
 was directed to objects interesting only to him-
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 37 
 
 self, — " it is amazingly unlucky for us all that 
 Dick Egerton is not a couple of years older. 
 My poor mother always spoke so confidently on 
 the subject, that we felt persuaded my father 
 would hold out for several years to come; so 
 that, as there seemed no probability of my seat 
 falling vacant, I allowed Egerton to leave Eng- 
 land for the grand tour only six weeks ago. 
 In our time, you know, the grand tour meant 
 Paris, Rome, Naples, and perhaps Vienna ; 
 nolo it appears to include Russia, Tartary, 
 Persia, Asia Minor, Egypt, and the Lord knows 
 what! Poor Egerton cannot have got further 
 than St. Petersburg; and it would be a sad 
 waste of time and money to recall him from such 
 a distance, merely to be elected and take his seat 
 till the close of the session, with a general elec- 
 tion coming on." 
 
 " Certainly, it seems scarcely worth while," 
 faltered William Egerton, in whose bosom the 
 long-forgotten voice of his brother was waking 
 up a thousand tender recollections, which some- 
 what disturbed his presence of mind. 
 
 " Whereas, if Dick were a couple of years
 
 38 preferment; or, 
 
 older/* resumed the Earl, '^ I could put him in 
 and trouble myself no further. It is not easy 
 to find a person altogether suitable as a stop- 
 gap for so short a time. I swear I have half a 
 mind to leave it in the hands of government. 
 They have always some useful man lying by for 
 such emergencies, and everything would be on 
 the safe side, besides making a favourable im- 
 pression where one is never sorry to stand on 
 good terms." 
 
 " My poor father invariably supported the 
 present government," mused William, whose 
 thoughts were neither with his brother nor his 
 nephews. 
 
 '' Ay, and in the most disinterested manner. 
 I don't recollect that he ever asked the smallest 
 favour in his life ! — To be sure, there was no great 
 occasion. His fiimily wanted nothing; and I 
 shall therefore be able to apply to government 
 with a better grace for the marquisate I have 
 so much at heart, and which I trust to obtain 
 at the next creation. Yes ! — all things consi- 
 dered, I shall certainly leave the borough in the 
 hands of ministers for the present ; but still I
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 39 
 
 should have been better pleased to put in Dick 
 Egerton, had he been of an age to come for- 
 ward." 
 
 " How old is your second son ?" inquired 
 William, trying to feel interested in the affairs 
 of one who to his was so totally indifferent. 
 
 " Scarcely nineteen, — about eighteen and a 
 half.'* 
 
 '' True, I remember ; — a few months younger 
 than my eldest. John is " 
 
 '' I must say for Dick," again interrupted 
 Lord Tiverton, " that if any young fellow of his 
 years could be qualified for a seat in parliament, 
 it is himself. Dick Egerton is better known 
 about town than many a man of thirty. Before 
 he left Eton, his face was familiar at Almack's and 
 his name at Crockford's. He is an amazingly 
 fine young man ; a leettle wild perhaps, like 
 almost every great genius ; but the world will 
 tame him down — the world will tame him 
 down! — Your boys, I suppose, are entered at 
 the University ?" 
 
 " At present," replied William, " I am sorry
 
 40 preferment; or, 
 
 to say, that though my youngest boy has 
 been—" 
 
 " Efferton was on the books before he was 
 sixteen !" interrupted Lord Tiverton, still harp- 
 ing on his sons ; " at twenty he took his 
 degree, and one, I assure you, that did him 
 honour; and now, I may venture to say that 
 there is not a finer or more accomplished young 
 man of his age in the three kingdoms. Do 
 your sons bear any resemblance to the family, 
 or are they more like the Sprys ?" 
 
 " John is considered extraordinarily like my- 
 self; and, if you remember, I was always con- 
 sidered the image of — '* 
 
 " It must be some years, I fancy, since you 
 saw Egerton and his brother ?" — again remorse- 
 lessly interrupted Lord Tiverton. " I think I 
 may say, without partiality, that they will sur- 
 prise you. — Dick is somewhat more than six feet 
 already ; and I have very little doubt that he 
 has a year's growth in him yet ! — I own I was 
 always anxious that my sons should turn out 
 tall ; and if Dick persists in his plan of going
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 41 
 
 r 
 
 into the Blues, his figure will be a very serious 
 advantage to him. I have promised that the 
 first thing I do on my return to town shall be 
 to get his name put down for a cornetcy." 
 
 The kindly nature of William Egerton in- 
 spired him with patience to listen to his brother's 
 wordy vauntings, hoping that his turn would 
 come to be heard in praise of his own promising 
 sons. But no: — after Lord Tiverton had ex- 
 hausted his eloquence in laudation of the merits 
 of his sons and beauties of his daughters, till his 
 auditor might have been qualified to paint strong 
 likenesses of the Ladies Ismena and Henrietta 
 Egerton, and to pen a certificate of the talents 
 of their brothers, he proposed coffee, and after 
 coffee, bed ; his lordship assuring poor William 
 that, after so long a journey and with the trying 
 scene of the morrow in prospect, he must want 
 repose. 
 
 He was accordingly compelled to retire 
 without having been able to edge in a word of 
 the charms of his pretty, unassuming, little 
 Mary, or of his spirited boys ; and as Lord 
 Tiverton had announced his intention of quitting
 
 42 preferment; or, 
 
 the Castle immediately after the solemn ceremo- 
 nial, there seemed every probability that William 
 Egerton would return to Hurley a poorer man 
 by the cost of his journey, and neither the hap- 
 pier nor the more sanguine in behalf of his 
 children from any expectations of patronage held 
 out by the new Earl. 
 
 On the following day, however, about five 
 minutes before his lordship stepped into his 
 travelling carriage, as they stood together 
 beside the well-covered luncheon-table to which 
 they had repaired on returning home from the 
 grand celebration in Tiverton Church, the Earl 
 (after expressing some regret that, on account 
 of being accompanied by his man of business, 
 he could not offer his brother a seat in his 
 dortneuse, and a hope that he would remain at 
 the Castle as long as it was agreeable to him) 
 drew him off to the embrasure of a window to 
 avoid being overheard by the butler, who was 
 fussing inquisitively round the table, and 
 abruptly inquired, '^ Whether there loas anythincj 
 he could do for him .^" — 
 
 The phrase is one of common parlance, more
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 43 
 
 especially between ministers and members, and 
 members and their constituents, to signify a 
 vague intention of conferring obligation at the 
 least possible cost and trouble to the inquirer. 
 Had the Earl really intended fraternal service 
 towards the brother, who inherited nothing by 
 virtue of the will which assigned him thirty 
 thousand pounds a year, he would of course have 
 expressed himself otherwise ; or rather, without 
 expressing himself at all, would have placed a 
 bank note of considerable amount in his hands. 
 But his utmost meaning was, (as a man of the 
 world, such, for instance, as his own brother 
 Adolphus, would have instantly imderstood.) 
 *' Have I succeeded to anything, in addition to 
 my title and estates, which, being of no possible 
 use to me or mine, could be turned to account 
 by you or yours ?" 
 
 William Egerton, however, instead of being a 
 man of the world, was only one of the best crea- 
 tures in it; and so far from apprehending the 
 hollow^ness of his brother's kindness, he pressed 
 Lord Tiverton's hand with grateful emotion, 
 and w^as for some minutes unable to reply. At
 
 44 preferment; or, 
 
 length, on a reiteration of the question, he 
 stammered forth a request for permission to 
 consult Mrs. Egerton, and write his answer 
 from Hurley House ; and the Earl, though 
 somewhat alarmed by all this note of prepara- 
 tion, more especially as Mrs. Egerton had been 
 described to him by his mother as a low-minded, 
 encroaching woman, had no other means of 
 cutting short the conversation and hastening 
 into his carriage than by a shake of the hand 
 and an apparently cordial assurance of assent. 
 
 Overpowered by this unexpected concession 
 on the part of Lord Tiverton, and full of 
 reliance upon the sincerity of his intentions, 
 William remained, according to his lordship's 
 advice, a day or two longer at the Castle, to 
 refresh himself after his journey, and renew 
 long-forgotten associations. During his ill- 
 starred visit to Tiverton with his young family 
 twelve years before, he had lived in such terror 
 of some unintentional offence being committed 
 by his wife or one of his children, as never to 
 be sufficiently at ease for the contemplation of a 
 spot which had been a beloved home to him
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 45 
 
 until his memorable removal to ^^ propria qucB 
 maribiis, and Helstone Parsonage." Yes, his 
 home ! — Stranger as he was there now, it 
 was along those very galleries his infant steps 
 had been carefully supported by obsequious 
 nurses ; — it was there his little bed had stood, an 
 object of solicitude to many ; — it was on those 
 lawns he had sported ; — it was those gorgeous 
 chambers he had made ring with his fearless 
 shouts of boyish glee ! — 
 
 The homely master, husband, and father of 
 Hurley House, the extent of whose pride con- 
 sisted in being lessee of twenty acres of meadow- 
 land and the most productive orchard in the 
 parish, could scarcely bring it within scope of his 
 belief that he had ever fed on plate, and boasted 
 grooms in livery attendant upon his Shetland 
 pony. 
 
 But it was still more difficult to conceive 
 that the indulsjent mother who used to smooth 
 down his flaxen curls was now the cold, 
 disdainful Dowager Countess of Tiverton; or 
 that the father who never passed him in his 
 leading-strings without a hearty kiss should 
 have left a will, covering eleven skins of parch-
 
 46 preferment; or, 
 
 ment, without so much as mention of his name ! 
 That the darhng little brothers, Dick and Dol, 
 for whom, in those happier times, he had fagged 
 at cricket and submitted to be blown up as 
 Guy Fawkes, should now be seated, the one, 
 bold and solemn, in the upper house, — the 
 other, wiggy and jocose, in "White's window, 
 — w^as not without its share in his wonder- 
 ment. 
 
 He was fain to admit, that of the three sons 
 of his father, if the poorest, he was certainly the 
 healthiest, and perhaps the happiest. Frugality 
 and obscurity had preserved his mind and body 
 in wholesome temperance. There was no blot 
 on his conscience, no blotch on his complexion ; 
 no humiliating consciousness of debt, or bilious 
 reminiscence of Champagne and Burgundy, to 
 plant wrinkles on the brow, or jaundice the 
 sickly cheek. 
 
 Without searching deeply into the causes of 
 this pre-eminence, poor Egerton was satisfied 
 with the result. He saw that the Earl, and he 
 heard that Adolphus, was already infirm and 
 gouty, and could not help thanking God 
 that he knew not even the name of an ailment.
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 47 
 
 His happy home and thriving family seemed to 
 have done their part in securing him one of the 
 best blessings of Providence. 
 
 The consequential servants, meanwhile, v^ho, 
 though accustomed to the present Lord Tiverton's 
 frequent visits to the Castle, and Adolphus's sep- 
 tennial apparition previous to occasional applica- 
 tions to the Earl to pay off his Nevi'market em- 
 barrassments, had never seen William Egerton 
 numbered among their guests, could scarcely 
 bring themselves to believe that the middle- 
 ao^ed man who went wandering with tears in his 
 eyes from room to room, looking at the family 
 pictures, and shaking his head at all the recent 
 improvements, was also a son of their late 
 master. Owing to the gradual changes of the 
 household, the Honourable William, who had 
 married disgracefully, and been banished ac 
 cordingly, had come to be a traditional per- 
 sonage in the steward's room -, and but that he 
 had officiated as pall-bearer at the funeral, and 
 been shaken hands with by the new Earl, the 
 butler would probably have felt inclined to 
 double-lock his plate-room.
 
 48 preferment; or, 
 
 At length, the housekeeper suggested that the 
 melancholy mdividual who made himself so 
 much at home must certainly be father to the 
 two young gentlemen who had been packed off 
 some weeks before from the Castle in disgrace 
 and all the ignominy of poor relationship, and 
 who, though they gave so much trouble to the 
 under-footmen, had given them nothing else; 
 and but that Lord Tiverton had expressly com- 
 manded every attention to be paid to Mr. 
 Egerton after his departure, the domestics would 
 soon have made it apparent that he was very 
 much in the way. Between the exit of the 
 Dowager and the entrance of the new Countess 
 they had their little perquisites to realize and 
 arrangements to make, and how was it possible 
 to do anything comfortable or satisfactory with 
 a strange gentleman in the house ? — No doubt 
 he would go spunging on for ages to come at 
 the Castle, plaguing their lives out. 
 
 The lapse of a day or two, however, put an 
 end to their uneasiness. Amid the purple and 
 fine linen of Tiverton Castle, William Egerton's 
 heart yearned after his humble fireside, sur-
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 49 
 
 rounded by happy, loving faces. He stayed 
 only long enough to re-peruse every feature of 
 a scene from which he had been so long absent, 
 and which he felt persuaded he should never 
 visit again. He chose to descend into the family 
 vault ere it was bricked up ; and saw the 
 sexton's flaring rushlight drip unnoticed upon 
 the crimson velvet coffin deposited there with 
 so much pomp and deference the preceding day. 
 He chose to shake hands with his paralytic old 
 nurse, now an inmate of the Tiverton alms- 
 houses. He chose to saunter beside the stream 
 into which he had thrown his first trout line, — 
 the fence he had first ventured to take, — the 
 farmhouse whose buxom dame had in her girl- 
 hood all but smiled him into inconstancy to 
 Olivia Spry. Then, after musing one solitary 
 evening beside the vast fire-place of the noble 
 chamber, into which Hurley House might have 
 been thrust for fuel, out-buildings and all, was 
 glad to cough down the choaking in his throat 
 ere he rang to order the postchaise that was to 
 enable him to meet the mail, on his return to 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 50 preferment; or, 
 
 an humble home embellished by the endear- 
 ments of sympathizing hearts; — to his darling 
 little Mary, his loving sons, and their still ten- 
 derly beloved mother.
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 31 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The cause of most actions, good or bad, may be resolved 
 into love of ourselves. But the self-love of some men 
 inclines them to please others, and the self-love of others is 
 wholly employed in pleasing themselves ; which makes the 
 great distinction between virtue and vice. — Swift. 
 
 To say that those by whom William Egerton 
 was anxiously expected at Hurley entertained 
 no curiosity to learn the worldly results of his 
 journey to the north, would be to attribute to 
 Mrs. Egerton and her offspring too rare a 
 superiority over the frailties of human nature ; 
 more especially as Miss Rachel Spry, with her 
 keen, gray, prying eyes, was just then added to 
 the family group. 
 
 But the young people entertained too high a 
 
 d2
 
 52 preferment; or, 
 
 respect for their father not to feel that, on his 
 return from the funeral of his own, his thoughts 
 must be otherwise engrossed than by the pelf 
 of this world. No one, not even Miss 
 Rachel, took the liberty of inquiring of 
 poor William whether his black coat brought 
 with it its own consolation, in the shape of a 
 handsome bequest. But when at length, a few 
 words explained that the decease of the Earl 
 had effected no change in his pecuniary affairs, 
 except so far as to subtract from his purse the 
 amount of his travelling expenses to and from 
 Tiverton Castle, a few more speedily followed, 
 to comfort his wife with an assurance that the 
 boys had everything to expect from their uncle. 
 Unluckily, the task of expectation is as easy as 
 it is agreeable. Furthered by aunt Rachel's widely 
 spreading ambitions, the two young men imme- 
 diately allowed their imaginations to run riot. 
 It was voted, nem con., that the Earl should 
 provide for Julius in the church, and get John 
 provided for in the army, besides forwarding 
 the interests of little Harry with the lords of the 
 admiralty ; and though a few hundreds per
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 53 
 
 annum would have been an agreeable addition 
 to the Egertons' income, they admitted, ere 
 they retired to rest that night, that they were 
 quite satisfied matters should stand as they did, 
 since the future interests of the family were 
 secured by the good intentions of Lord Tiverton. 
 
 On the following day, accordingly, a letter 
 was despatched to his lordship's address in town, 
 signifying William's desire that he would lose 
 no time in procuring a commission for his eldest, 
 and in promising a living to his second son ; and 
 remembering the promptitude of the unfavour- 
 able reply vouchsafed some months before by 
 the Countess Dowager, the sanguine family did 
 not doubt that, in a day or two at furthest, good 
 news would reach them from the Earl. 
 
 Day followed day, however, and week followed 
 week ; but no frank bearing the name of " Tiver- 
 ton" disclosed its dignities among the shabby-look- 
 ing letters of the Hurley post-office. Miss Rachel, 
 satisfied that there must be some mistake, 
 actually trotted into the village to cross-examine 
 the mistress of the little grocer's shop to which 
 the office was annexed: but Mrs. Brown was
 
 54 preferment; or, 
 
 firm in her assertions that she was '* sartain sure 
 all the letters had been punctooally delivered, and 
 that there hadn't been no government kiver 
 whatsumever for the Honourable William Eger- 
 
 ton/' 
 
 Miss Rachel was indignant; more especially 
 as she was about to return to Helstone without 
 being able to surprise the old Doctor with tidings 
 of the elevation of his grandsons. Even Mr. 
 Egerton was beginning to fear that Richard the 
 sixth Earl of Tiverton would prove as lukewarm 
 a friend as Richard, the fifth. It was only little 
 Mary Egerton who went on hoping. The joy 
 and blessing of Hurley House and Hurley 
 village, she had a happy knack of cherishing 
 hope for herself and imparting it to others ; and 
 cheered by her prognostications of ultimate 
 success, the father and mother took patience, 
 and continued to indulge in chimeras that John 
 might yet be a field-marshal, and Julius, arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury. 
 
 Spring and summer passed away, however, 
 without the smallest token of notice from the Earl. 
 The parents grew impatien t, — the two young men.
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 55 
 
 angry ; till, at length, the urgent necessity for 
 takingfurthersteps in their education inducedWil- 
 liam Egerton to overcome his repugnance ; and 
 he wrote again, mildly, but firmly, to his brother. 
 
 " I am extremely sorry to perceive, my dear 
 William,*' was his lordship's unmeaningly em- 
 phatic reply, " that you have so little reliance 
 upon my word as to conceive me unmindful of 
 your interests. The press of business thrown 
 upon my hands by the recent melancholy event 
 in our family, has rendered it impossible for 
 me to reply earlier to your letter of 3rd of 
 February last, signifying your wish to have one 
 of your sons provided for by government in 
 the army, and another, upon the Egerton 
 interest, in the church, 
 
 " Allow me, my dear brother, hy way of pre- 
 liminary y to take the liberty of remarking, that 
 I look upon it as rather hard, considering you 
 are aware that, of my two sons, one is destined 
 to be Q, soldiery you should expect me to weaken 
 my interest at the Horse Guards in favour of 
 any other person ; and, in the next place, 
 permit me to observe, that I am fully aware of
 
 56 preferment; or, 
 
 your having refused the living of Wyndham 
 for one of your sons previous to its being be- 
 stowed upon my son Dick's tutor, young Nice- 
 wig ; which inconsistency of purpose not being ge- 
 nerally hnownj it will make a very singular im- 
 pression on the PUBLIC that Lord Tiverton's 
 chaplain should he enjoying family preferment to 
 the amount of fourteen hundred a-year, 
 while his nephew is presented to a living of two ! 
 I confess, therefore, I should have been better 
 pleased had you chosen for your son any other 
 profession than the church. Concluding, how- 
 ever, that you had urgent motives for making 
 these requests at a period when you are aware 
 I have need of all my interest with govern- 
 ment for the furtherance of my anxious wishes 
 concerning the marquisate, / made up my mind 
 to overlook the annoyance of having to harass 
 ministers with so untimely an application ; and 
 have now the pleasure to tell you, that Mr. John 
 Egerton's name is inserted in the Horse-Guards^ 
 list for an ensigncy^ the first available opportu- 
 nity ; and the satisfaction of adding, that the list 
 which last year contained three thousand one hun-
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 57 
 
 dred names^ is reduced to two thousand nine hun- 
 dred AND SEVENTY-TWO ! 
 
 " With regard to a living for your second son ^ I 
 regret to say that, previous to my succeeding to 
 the disposal of the family preferment, promises 
 had been exacted from me in favour of the 
 two Flinthams, Lady Tiverton's younger bro- 
 thers. I FEAR, therefore, it will be many years 
 before I have anything in my gift icorthy the 
 acceptance of Mr, Julius Egerton. However, if 
 you choose him to take orders, I pledge myself 
 to do what I CAN for him ; having no object 
 nearer at heart than to promote the welfare and 
 respectability of the Egerton family. 
 
 With compliments to your family, I am, my 
 
 dear brother, truly yours, ,, Tiverton." 
 
 ^' St. James's Square, 
 
 ** June 10th, 183—." 
 
 Grievous was the damp thrown by this formal 
 epistle upon the spirits of the little circle. A 
 hectic spot burnt upon the cheek of Julius as 
 he listened to what appeared his sentence of 
 condemnation ; and even John shrugged his 
 shoulders, while Mrs. Egerton expressed her 
 
 D 3
 
 58 preferment; or, 
 
 conviction that Lord Tiverton's original inten- 
 tions had been frustrated by the influence of his 
 worldly wife in favour of her own relations. 
 But not even this acceptable apology could re- 
 concile William Egerton to so cruel a change 
 of tone on the part of his brother. For himself, 
 he had borne neglect and humiliation without a 
 murmur; for his boys, he was less disposed to 
 patience ; and so marked was the irritation with 
 which the usually placid man crumpled up Lord 
 Tiverton's letter and thrust it into his pocket, 
 that on his quitting the room and being seen a 
 few moments afterwards hurriedly traversing 
 the paddock, his daughter, after a significant 
 nod from her mother, tied on her bonnet and 
 hastened to cheer him with that dutiful compa- 
 nionship which was the dearest solace of his life. 
 
 But if Hurley House were overwhelmed with 
 disappointment, what was the indignation of 
 Helstone rectory, when poor William drove 
 over in his gig the following day to communi- 
 cate his griefs. 
 
 " His lordship's patronage already pledged ?" 
 cried aunt Rachel. " Lord Holwell, with ten
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 39 
 
 thousand a year, bespeak benefices for his sons ? 
 I don't believe a word of it. I can't believe 
 a word of it. It is nothing but a pitiful 
 get-off, at Lady Tiverton's suggestion. That 
 woman has always been your enemy. Half 
 the animosity entertained against my poor sister 
 at the Castle was of Lady Egerton's conjuring 
 up ; for, from what I have heard my poor, dear 
 mother say of the Countess, and my poor, dear 
 father say of the Earl, I am convinced it was not 
 in them to be so unnaturally cruel as they 
 shewed themselves to the poor, dear boys, had 
 not some mischievous person been at hand to 
 aggravate their ill-will." 
 
 '' But, if you remember, my sister-in-law was 
 not just then on term's at the Castle,'' pleaded 
 Egerton. 
 
 "No matter: — one way or other, depend upon 
 it, she had something to do with it; and just as 
 she always kept you in hot water with your 
 father, she will with your brother, unless you 
 take the initiative. My dear, dear Mr. 
 Egerton, you must lose no time in driving her 
 from the field, by a coup de main /"
 
 60 preferment; or, 
 
 William Egerton looked puzzled. 
 *' Prove to Lord and Lady Tiverton that you 
 are in no want of their patronage, — that your 
 sons are otherwise provided for, — and, my life 
 upon it, they become your zealous friends !" 
 
 " But my sons are not otherwise provided 
 for," remonstrated her matter-of-fact brother-in- 
 law; "and so far from being in a situation to 
 dispense with my brother's patronage, I told 
 him frankly when we were down together at 
 Tiverton Castle, that I had no chance of getting 
 anything done for my boys unless through his 
 recommendation.'* 
 
 " Then no wonder he treats you so shame- 
 fully ! — what else had you to expect? — However, 
 since that foolish step is irretrievable, you must 
 turn your plans in another direction. You 
 seem to have forgotten all this while the splendid 
 patronage possessed by your uncle, the Duke of 
 Pelham T' 
 
 " Since my marriage, he has never taken the 
 slightest notice of me," faltered William, in a 
 low voice. 
 
 "So long as you had a hope of getting
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 61 
 
 anything done by Lord Tiverton there was no 
 use in reminding you of it," continued Miss 
 Rachel, without noticing his interruption. 
 " But now, the time is come for you to 
 avail yourself of your family connexions. 
 Take my advice, William. Write and ask his 
 grace, point blank, for the reversion of Helstone. 
 Remind him that Dr. Spry is infirm, — that he 
 has done much for the improvement of the 
 living, — that your son will officiate as his curate 
 so long as he lives, and naturallv succeed to his 
 gown when he is no more; — and be sure to put 
 forward the claims of Julius, not as the nephew 
 of Lord Tiverton, but as the grandson of his 
 grace's venerable tutor and the tender pre- 
 ceptress of his grace's amiable sisters. The 
 Duke had a great regard for my poor, dear 
 mother, — (when he was a boy, he once made his 
 way slyly into the school-room, and tied a squib 
 to her lawn apron,) — be assured he will not have 
 the face to refuse the reversion of Helstone to 
 poor Julius.'* 
 
 Awed by the prospect of making so bold an 
 attempt, William Egerton shook his head,
 
 62 preferment; or, 
 
 hemming, hawing, and doubting as to the dis- 
 cretion of the measure. But his sister-in-law 
 would hear of no delay. Having drilled hin> 
 down to a desk, with pens, ink, paper, and wax 
 on one side, and the rough copy of a plausibly 
 indited letter on the other, there was no retreat 
 either for his timidity or his idleness. The 
 application was penned and despatched; and so 
 speedily acknowledged with a favourable answer 
 by the Duke of Pelham, (who was in an agony 
 lest the world should discover he had a nephew 
 in need of so small a favour,) that Rachel Spry 
 had some right to pride herself for the re- 
 mainder of her days upon the success of her 
 tactics. 
 
 For her triumph did not end with the 
 promise of the living of Helstone. Lord 
 Tiverton, after casually learning one night 
 from his uncle the Duke, between the deals of 
 a rubber at Brookes's, that he was in correspon- 
 dence with his brother William concerning a 
 provision for one of his sons, saw fit to exert 
 himself so manfully at the Horse-Guards, with a 
 view to the redemption of his character for
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 63 
 
 fraternal affection, that *' John Egerton, gent.," 
 was gazetted into a crack regiment of the line 
 about the same time that " Julias Egerton, 
 clerk," was entered at Trin. Coll., Cam. 
 
 A cubit was added to Miss RacheFs stature 
 by this triple fruition of her plans. She had 
 secured an assistant for her father, a living for 
 one nephew, and a commission for another; and 
 though Hurley House grew very dull to poor 
 Egerton after the departure of his boys, he 
 was comforted by the knowledge that they 
 were now '* as good as provided for," 
 
 All that remained to him of paternal anxiety 
 was the dread that, on the completion of little 
 Mary's education, some audacious young fellow, 
 with white teeth and a good assurancej 
 might win her affections, carry her off as his 
 bride, and perfect the desolation of Hurley 
 by the breaking up of his family circle.
 
 64 PREFERMENT: OR, 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 He that would have fine guests, let him have a fine wife. 
 
 Ben Jonson. 
 
 It is often pronounced the most enviable 
 situation in the world when a spirited young 
 man of twenty-one comes into the enjoyment of 
 an ancient title and unencumbered estate. But 
 under favour of those who maintain such an 
 opinion, that man is thrice as much to be envied 
 who, after five-and-twenty years of difficulties, 
 arrives at the same crisis; to luxuriate in the 
 satisfaction of smoothing down domestic discon- 
 tents, paying off long-standing debts and long- 
 grumbling domestics, and heaping upon a 
 peevish wife and eager children the often-pro- 
 mised repayment of their privations.
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 65 
 
 All this and more now fell to the share of 
 the Earl of Tiverton. Though the buoyancy 
 of youth was gone with its elastic and reckless 
 sense of enjoyment, he had acquired a middle- 
 age-like delight in the mere consciousness of 
 possession ; the aspect of his banker's book being 
 now as great a source of excitement to him as 
 the sight of a fine Salvator or Vandyck twenty 
 years before; and the recital of a rent-roll 
 sweeter music in his ears than all the oratorios 
 of Handel or symphonies of Haydn. 
 
 But setting aside the selfish enjoyment of his 
 newly acquired fortunes, there was sufficient 
 delight in knowing that the murmurs of his wife 
 were at an end ; that he should have no more 
 complaints of the ignominy of occupying a box 
 on the third tier at the opera; of appearing at the 
 drawing-room in a carriage five seasons old, and 
 a diamond necklace that would disgrace the lady 
 of a country baronet ; of being able to afford 
 only a governess a-piece to his daughters, and a 
 hack a-piece to his sons; of being, in short, 
 overwhelmed with the miseries arising from a 
 limited income and illimitable desires.
 
 66 preferment; or, 
 
 No wonder that his lordship found no leisure 
 to answer the letters of necessitous brothers, 
 when such a burthen of laborious happiness was 
 laid upon his shoulders. In the first place, the 
 house in St. James's Square was to be thoroughly 
 repaired, beautified, and furnished, with all the 
 costly items of modern luxury. Lady Tiver- 
 ton, who, with a boundless taste for expense, 
 had been compelled ever since her marriage 
 to tame down her genius, and renounce 
 the pursuit of pleasures to which, as Lord Hol- 
 welFs daughter, she felt herself entitled, and 
 to which? on her marriage with Lord Egerton, 
 she had secretly trusted to be speedily promoted 
 by the death of their valetudinarian father, soon 
 set to work the invention of the London vanity- 
 mongers ; and every day, almost every hour, 
 his lordship found his sanction required for some 
 addition to his service of plate, or family jewels, 
 or equipages, or stud. So long debarred the 
 vulgar pleasure of acquisition. Lady Tiverton 
 seemed to fancy she could not buy enough, 
 while anything new or fashionable remained to 
 be purchased.
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 67 
 
 It was, perhaps, fortunate for the Earl that 
 his daughters were not yet of an age to stimulate 
 their mother's extravagance. Lady Ismena, the 
 eldest, was still in the school-room ; Lady Hen- 
 rietta, several years younger, still in the nur- 
 sery ; and Lady Tiverton had, consequently, the 
 enjoyment of her first two or three years of 
 splendour unencumbered with the chaperonage 
 of a daughter. 
 
 Those years, however, were not thrown away. 
 While little Mary Egerton was sewing seams by 
 her mother's side, or accompanying her upon 
 errands of village benevolence ; while John was 
 displaying his epaulet in country quarters ; and 
 Julius fagging his way to distinction at Trinity, 
 the beautiful Lady Ismena was placed under the 
 persecution of all the fashionable professors just 
 then perplexing the intellects of the rising 
 generation. She was no longer allowed to think, 
 look, speak, or move, in a natural manner. All 
 was art, all grimace; and by the time the 
 morning papers were instructed to ring out 
 their note of preparation in announcement of 
 her debut —
 
 68 preferment; or, 
 
 The parent that her bore 
 Would not have known her child. 
 
 The fashionable world applauded ; for it was 
 understood that Lady Tiverton intended to sig- 
 nalize her daughter's presentation by a series 
 of balls. Lady Ismena's beautiful face lent its 
 smiles to the Book of Beauty for the season, 
 illustrated by an ode from a lady laureate, who, 
 never having seen the original of the picture, 
 was misled by the transparency of the engraving 
 into describing her ladyship's hazel eyes as 
 
 Blue with the tint of Heaven's cerulean vault ; 
 
 whereupon, all the would-be fashionables in- 
 dulged in raptures concerning the brightness of 
 her ladyship's matchless blue eyes. 
 
 People who saw matters more prosaically, 
 were not only cognizant of the colour of 
 her eyes, but strongly of opinion that the 
 efforts of Lady Tiverton's two years of opu- 
 lence had done wonders to spoil one of the 
 fairest productions of nature; and more than 
 one spiteful dowager, to whom the worldly-
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 69 
 
 minded Countess allowed a private glimpse 
 of the new beauty, was anxiously circulating 
 her charitable hope that poor little Lady Hen- 
 rietta would not be tortured into the airs and 
 grimaces disfiguring her eldest sister. 
 
 Considering the fatal zeal with which Lady 
 Tiverton pursued her task of perversion, this 
 did not appear probable. The Countess, who 
 was really proud of her daughters, and as 
 desirous to promote their interests, according to 
 her vain and frivolous views, as Mrs. William 
 Egerton to secure the happiness of her unpre- 
 tending Mary, would have been miserable had 
 a single spot of their natures and capacities 
 been left uncultivated to throw up flowers 
 and fruits in untrimly wildness. Her object 
 being to render them, like herself, rich 
 countesses, — with houses in St. James's Square, 
 fine diamonds, fine equipages, and good boxes at 
 the opera, — she was, perhaps, judicious in sub- 
 duing their intellects to the standard of so con- 
 tracted a sphere. 
 
 Her sons, meanwhile, were already what is 
 called in the world : — Lord Egerton, on his return
 
 70 preferment; or, 
 
 from his travels, having taken his seat in the 
 house, and made manifest the probability that he 
 would never fill a wider space than the one 
 assigned him by his birthright ; — while the Hon. 
 Richard Egerton Egerton, as he was ceremo- 
 niously styled by the newspapers, or " Dicky 
 Edge," as he was familiarly called by the clubs, 
 already excited the highest expectations. Others 
 besides his parents were of opinion that he was 
 likely to make a considerable figure in " the 
 world;" but others besides his parents were still 
 in doubt whether in the fashionable, the lite- 
 raiy, or the political. 
 
 Dick Egerton stood in the false position 
 so often assigned in England to the younger 
 brothers of a noble house. In the case 
 of the last Lord Tiverton, a fortune of fifty 
 thousand pounds settled by the whim of the old 
 Duke of Pelham upon the younger children of 
 his favourite daughter, had provided for William 
 and Adolphus Egerton and their sister, the 
 Marchioness of Easthampton, without injury to 
 the family estate ; but the present Countess was 
 not only one of the five dowerless Hon. Misses
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 71 
 
 Flintham, but had so embarrassed her husband's 
 income during his father's Hfetime, that the Earl 
 had no present means of increasing the five 
 thousand pounds a-piece, which the tenure of 
 his entailed estates enabled him to raise for 
 the settlement in life of each of his younger chil- 
 dren. 
 
 Dick Egerton, accordingly, though luxu- 
 riously reared and participating in the enjoy- 
 ments of a princely income, was liable to be re- 
 duced at any moment for a maintenance, to less 
 than the present annual amount of his tailor's 
 bill. It is true that the demise of his father 
 which was to bring him to poverty, would place 
 the family borough at his brother's disposal, so 
 as at least to secure him from his creditors. 
 But Lord Egerton was a young gentleman so 
 wrapt up in self-conceit that it was impossible to 
 penetrate his real disposition ; and after the ex- 
 ample of others equally high in station, he was 
 quite as likely to make a government bargain of 
 his seat as sacrifice his interest to screen the 
 disgraces of his family. 
 
 Young Egerton was not at present of an age
 
 72 preferment; or, 
 
 to reflect gravely upon the insecurity of his 
 social position. But he saw that he had his 
 fortune to make ; that his brother was to inherit 
 thirty thousand a-year, he, only the taste for 
 spending it; and instead of extracting enjoy- 
 ment from the talents he was conscious of pos- 
 sessing, his only idea was to turn them to ac- 
 count, as a mountebank. He had brought from 
 Eton and Oxford the reputation of being a 
 clever, agreeable fellow ; and though con- 
 vinced within himself that he possessed capacities 
 of a higher order, was resolved, instead of relin- 
 quishing the enjoyments of a man of pleasure, 
 to render them subsidiary to his advancement 
 in life. 
 
 Such, stripping away the delusions of pomp 
 and vanity, was the position of Lord Tiverton's 
 family, half-a-dozen years after his attainment of 
 a rank in life which had sufficed to distract his 
 mind with frivolous imaginings while officiating 
 at the funeral of his father. The world saw it in 
 a more favourable light. The world described 
 Tiverton House as a place where the best 
 dinners were eaten, and the best company as-
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 73 
 
 sembled. The Countess was a delightful person, 
 — though a little passes, still high bred and fasci- 
 nating ; Lord Egerton, a very gentlemanly man ; 
 Dick, the most charming fellow in the world ; 
 and their father, all that is necessary in the head 
 of such a house, namely, a person never in the 
 way. Everything about them conduced to the 
 general attraction. Everything was elegant and 
 highly-finished ; no ''jarring atom" disturbed 
 the harmony of the establishment. 
 
 There was one member of the Egerton family 
 who contemplated all this with even deeper 
 interest than the public, to whose enjoyment it 
 was intended to administer. Adolphus, the 
 brother of the Earl, a man to whom his prefix 
 of Honourable signified as little as the colour of 
 his helper's jacket, had for the last five-and- 
 twenty years been regretting that the Egerton 
 family was beginning to lose caste, in conse- 
 quence of the old-fashioned habits of the late 
 Earl, the state of whose health did not admit of 
 his passing more than two months of the year 
 in town, or figuring in society. As regarded 
 the world of which Adolphus Egerton formed 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 74 preferment; or, 
 
 a fraction, the old lord might as well have 
 been an Egyptian mummy ! Instead of keep- 
 ing up a proper establishment where his sons 
 might drop in any day throughout the season 
 with a friend to a late dinner, without fear 
 of being poisoned, Lord Tiverton chose to 
 adhere to his English cook and habit of dining 
 at six o'clock ; — the utmost stretch of his hospi- 
 tality consisting in occasional banquets of the 
 most solemn nature, of which the guests were as 
 cold and heavy as the viands. 
 
 Adolphus Egerton had, in fact, been all but 
 obliged to drop the acquaintance of his father 
 and mother ! — An egotist to the utmost extent 
 of modern selfishness, Adolphus had proceeded to 
 college after William's unfortunate renunciation 
 of a classical education and professional career ; 
 not with the intention of realizing the projects 
 disclosed by his father to Dr. Spry, but because 
 his mother had apprized him that the evil con- 
 sequences of the private education bestowed 
 upon him by the Earl were only to be obviated 
 by forming at Oxford the aristocratic con- 
 nexions he had been prevented from acquiring
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 75 
 
 at Helstone parsonage. Aware that the thou- 
 sand a year which had enabled his brother to 
 make a foolish marriage would entitle him to 
 embark in the inviting career of a man about 
 town, he accordingly hastened to complete his 
 education at Christ Church ; quitting the univer- 
 sity just in time to avoid expulsion, with the 
 renown of being the best judge of a horse and 
 the best whist-player of his years ever launched 
 from the bosom of alma mater. 
 
 He had, of course, paid pretty dearly for his 
 knowledge. The portion intended by the will 
 of the Duke his grandfather to set him off' in 
 life, was diminished by one half ere it came into 
 his possession. But on the day which entitled him 
 to receive his fortune and compelled him to pay 
 his I. O. U.s, he fulfilled a promise he had often 
 repeated to himself, of sinking the other moiety in 
 a life rent. His connexion with the more dis- 
 solute and therefore necessitous portion of the 
 nobility, enabled him to secure for his ten thou- 
 sand pounds an annuity of six hundred a-year ; 
 which had the double advantage of increasing 
 his income, and rendering it impossible to 
 
 E 2
 
 76 preferment; or, 
 
 indulge his passion for play, — unless at his 
 father's expense. From that period, the wild 
 hot-headed Adolphus Egerton tamed himself 
 down into a cold, methodical roue. It was im- 
 possible to conceive anything more systematic 
 than his libertinism. His hours and habits, 
 irregular as they would have appeared to his 
 brother William or some country cousin, were 
 as periodical as the changes of the moon. No 
 barrister kept his terms more punctually than 
 Adolphus his Newmarket engagements; no 
 housekeeper more correctly her book of family 
 accounts, than Adolphus his small betting-book. 
 The consequence was, that among the sporting 
 men of the day Egerton had acquired the name 
 of a very steady fellow ; and among women of 
 fashion, of a very safe man. He was the affide 
 of half-a-dozen houses, forming an agreeable 
 relief to his club-life ; and had made for himself 
 a position in the London world far exceeding 
 that to which he was entitled as younger son of 
 Lord Tiverton. By dint of one of those inex- 
 plicable influences which prove the goddess 
 Fashion to be fifty times more capricious than
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 77 
 
 the goddess Fortune, had he become a person of 
 consequence. 
 
 At five-and-forty, Adolphus Egerton ex- 
 hibited that hard, withered look, exclusively 
 characteristic of the London man. After dress- 
 ing during three hundred and sixty-five days 
 per annum of five-and-twenty years with a view 
 to confront the critical investigation of St. 
 James's Street, Adolphus's well-cut coat ana 
 well-tied cravat had become as much a portion 
 of himself as the skin of the Ethiopian, or the 
 spots of the leopard. Face, features, gait, cos- 
 tume, all were drilled into such perfect artifi- 
 ciality, that it seemed scarcely possible the well- 
 bred automaton should at any moment be sub- 
 jected to the ordinary impulses of nature. 
 
 Such was the individual who was looking for- 
 ward with some degree of interest to Dick 
 Egerton's debut in London life. His elder 
 nephew was little or nothing to him. Lord 
 Egerton naturally succeeded to Lord Egerton. 
 His public career was chalked out, — to vote the 
 address in parliament with a neat little speech, 
 then subside discreetly into a vote ; and after a
 
 78 preferment; or, 
 
 few seasons in town, fall a victim to some judi- 
 cious mamma, and marry for the perpetua- 
 tion of Earls of Tiverton ; — his tailor, coach- 
 maker, and some broken-hearted girl, being 
 paid off by his father by way of bribe, to deter- 
 mine his settlement in life. But to Adolphus 
 Egerton, Dick was the natural heir ; — heir to all 
 that his well-calculated thrift left him the power 
 of bequeathing, — his niche in the great pyramid 
 of London life, and his privileges as a man 
 about town. When it was all over with him, 
 the name of Egerton would still revive the 
 echoes of White's, — still be heard of in the 
 Jockey Club, — still preserve its odour of sanc- 
 tity at the Travellers', — provided Dick Eger- 
 ton fulfilled his early promise, and did cre- 
 dit to the lessons instilled into his precocious 
 mind in his uncle's sanctum sanctorum in May 
 Fair. 
 
 Every experienced artist has secrets to be- 
 queath to his successors, and the more generous 
 professors are usually observed to single out some 
 promising pupil, to whom they impart in their 
 latter years the mysteries of their calling. Adol-
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 79 
 
 phus Egerton was fortunate in so talented an 
 acolyte as his younger nephew, to perfect whose 
 education was a pleasure as well as a duty. He 
 was gratified to find Lord Egerton turn out 
 well-bred, and well-dressed, — exclusively occu- 
 pied with himself and the desire of doing exactly 
 the right thing in exactly the right way, 
 without falling into the flagrant tigerisnis 
 recently introduced, to the detriment of the 
 classical school of dandyism. But in Dick Eger- 
 ton's well-doing, he took a personal pride. It 
 would be a serious reflection upon him^ the 
 dean of the faculty, should Lord Tiverton's 
 younger son degenerate into a second-rate man 
 of fashion. 
 
 Adolphus had, in fact, cherished occasional 
 misgivings that the legitimate school, of which 
 he was so distinguished a professor, was on the 
 decline, and the temple of fine gentlemanism, 
 reared under the auspices of Carlton House, 
 tottering to its fall. Of the great men illus- 
 trating the dandy epoch of his youth, 
 
 Every bright name that shed 
 Light o'er the land was fled ;
 
 80 preferment; or, 
 
 Some were in exile — some in the grave : — some 
 at Calais — some at Coventry ; — some married to 
 divorcees and estranged from female society, — 
 some to country heiresses, and lost to male. 
 George Robins had disposed of the parapher- 
 nalia of a dozen or so, whose place remembered 
 them no longer, — whose snuff-boxes were dis- 
 persed among the curiosity shops, — whose 
 travelling -carriages had been bought cheap by 
 retired haberdashers, — whose names. were for- 
 gotten amid their daily haunts and ancient 
 neighbourhood, except in the defaulter-lists of 
 the clubs. Some were shewing their withered 
 faces and knocking knees at Paris, — some at 
 Florence, — some at Naples, — some concealing 
 them in more obscure retreats. But of the illus- 
 trious group in which he had emerged from ob- 
 scurity in the days when George IV. was regent, 
 and Regent Street, Swallow Street, — scarcely a 
 trace remained to keep up tradition of the good 
 old times. 
 
 In " Dicky Edge," however, Adolphus Eger- 
 ton fancied he saw promise of a revival. There 
 was a callousness about him that excited ex-
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 81 
 
 pectations. As Cardinal Mazarin said of an- 
 other illustrious cardinal, in his boy days, "// 
 y avait de Vavenir dans ce petit faquin Id." 
 The uncle accordingly resolved that the nephew 
 should profit by his experience, and live un- 
 harmed by the heartaches and headaches entailed 
 upon himself by early excesses, as well as by the 
 recollection of having dissipated half his fortune 
 ere he possessed faculties for its enjoyment. 
 
 Dick should never have to lament, with By- 
 ron, that he had 
 
 Squandered his whole summer ere 'twas prime. 
 
 His soul and his digestion should remain un- 
 impaired. Neither the gout nor wounded affec- 
 tions should diminish his enjoyment of the 
 tranquil rubber, — the well-iced glass of hock. 
 At sixty, he should be able to sup on lobster 
 salad without a qualm ; and calculate, without 
 so much as knitting his brow, the cards out in the 
 tenth round of the sixteenth rubber. He should 
 be the old Parr of St. James's Street; — the Ti- 
 tian Vecelli of the Carltonian School of Art. 
 Dick Eoerton, on the other hand, entertained 
 
 E 3
 
 82 preferment; or, 
 
 the highest respect for his uncle. The Earl 
 (for with him his father was only the Earl) was 
 an excellent kind of man — a substance, of which 
 the animus \vas a rent-roll and a patent of 
 nobility, — the mere type of a social position. 
 But Adolphus was something more. Adolphus 
 had created a name for himself — Adolphus was 
 a personage to whom the world referred for his 
 judgment of a race-horse, or the decision of a 
 disputed bet ; a sort of Lord Chancellor of 
 the realms of vice and folly, whose decrees were 
 issued with a gravity that might have done 
 honour to the woolsack. Dick Egerton never 
 entered without deference the little den in May 
 Fair, whose opinions were quoted with respect 
 in circles where those of his father's dull man- 
 sion in St. James's Square would not have ob- 
 tained a hearing. 
 
 " Who was that person to whom I saw you 
 speaking yesterday at the corner of Pall Mall ?" 
 inquired Adolphus one morning when his 
 nephew dropped in to a breakfast-table, which 
 the pearl of valets took care should be the best 
 appointed of any bachelor-breakfast in town.
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 83 
 
 " Yesterday ?— Pall Mall?— A tall, good- 
 looking fellow, with dark hair ?" — 
 
 " I did not notice his height or hair ; but 
 his appearance was far from such as to justify 
 your being seen with him opposite to Sams's 
 door/* 
 
 " An awful coat, I admit — the regular Trinity 
 cut ; but I could not avoid speaking to him, — 
 it was Julius Egerton." 
 
 " And who, under heaven, is Julius Eger- 
 ton ?"— 
 
 *' He has distinguished himself very much, 
 you know, at Cambridge." 
 
 " Indeed I know nothing about him. William 
 Egerton's son, perhaps ?" 
 
 « Exacllv." 
 
 " But what necessity was there for your 
 stopping to talk to him in one of the most 
 frequented spots in London? — Conceive what 
 any man must have thought who saw you 
 listening to an individual whose healthy, ani- 
 mated face proved him to be perfectly new 
 about town, and without the slightest air of 
 fashion entithng him to become old !" —
 
 84 PREFERMENT ; OR, 
 
 " My father desired me to be civil to my cou- 
 sins whenever they came in my way. It seems my 
 uncle Pelham has taken them under his wing." 
 
 "Tiverton has the most extraordinary notions ! 
 — However, when he bad you be civil to them, 
 I don't suppose he meant you to go the length of 
 stopping to speak to them in St. James's Street. 
 You are not sufficiently established to run such 
 risks — I could scarcely venture to do it my- 
 self. Apropos, my dear Dick, for the love of 
 Gad, don't let me hear j^ou talk again of your 
 ' father' and your * cousins.' There is nothing 
 more indecent than public allusions to family 
 relationships. The world is not obliged to 
 know anything of your connexions ; the world 
 is not supposed to know that you have a father. 
 Above all, too, your ' uncle Pelham !' — Call him 
 the Duke of Pelham in mixed company, or old 
 Pelham among men with whom you are intimate; 
 — but your < uncle !' — Good Gad ! — ^you will be 
 calling me your uncle next !" 
 
 " And what would you have me call you ? ' 
 inquired his nephew, eager to vex him in return 
 for his reprimand.
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 85 
 
 " Egerton, or Adolphus, or Dol, or any- 
 thing you choose. And pray, is this person, — 
 this Julius Egerton, — living in London, to be 
 running against one every moment ?" — 
 
 ** Old Pelham has given him a living, or the 
 reversion of a living, somewhere in Sussex." 
 
 ''A parson! — umph ! — Just the cross to 
 have been expected from an intermarriage be- 
 tween a younger brother and a schoolmaster's 
 daughter ! — I suppose poor William has a tribe 
 of sons. — I should not be surprised to find that 
 one of them was articled to an attorney ! — 
 What an incalculable number of dreadful 
 consequences arise from the folly of a love 
 match." 
 
 '* I met Julius Egerton last year at Storby 
 Castle," observed Dick, feeling that some 
 apology was necessary for his familiarity with 
 his country cousin. '' Storby is a Trinity man, 
 and Egerton is one of their lio?is.^^ 
 
 '' So much the better. Let him rise in the 
 church as hio^h as he chooses. I shouldn't 
 much care if he were to become a Bishop, as I 
 shall be most likely in my coffin before the
 
 86 preferment; or, 
 
 family is disgraced by a Right Reverend. But, 
 en attendant, pray don't let me see you talk- 
 ing to a man whom nobody ever saw or heard 
 of." 
 
 " I am not likely to put your patience to the 
 test. I was civil to him during the month we 
 spent together at Storby; for the fellow rides 
 well, is a good shot, and has all the other 
 instincts of a gentleman. It is not his fault that 
 he is in the church : I suppose his father had no 
 other way of getting him provided for. But I 
 am happy to tell you he is only passing through 
 London on his way to his living." 
 
 " So much the better. I was afraid you 
 might think of introducing him in St. James's 
 Square. Lady Tiverton cannot be too careful. 
 A strange-looking person of that description 
 seen in her set, and it might take her half a 
 dozen seasons to get over the consequences. 
 A woman in her position, who has daughters 
 to marry, should never admit a person into her 
 house who is' not as well known, or the son of 
 some one as well known, as the dial of the 
 clock at the Horse Guards ! The moment
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 87 
 
 you have explanations to make about people, 
 they are not fit for your society. So much 
 for your edification ! — And now, let us go and 
 look over the morning papers."
 
 88 preferment; or, 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Quel cbimfere done que rhomme! Juge de toutes 
 choses, — imbecile ver de terre, — d^positaire du vrai,— amas 
 d 'incertitudes ! — Pascal. 
 
 Very differently was the interview between 
 the cousins dwelt upon by Julius Egerton, on 
 his way back to Helstone Parsonage. 
 
 The old Doctor, whose life was now a per- 
 petual doze in his easy chair, (imbecile in every' 
 one's opinion but his own,) had long ceded to 
 his grandson the spiritual direction of the parish, 
 contenting himself with pocketing great tithes 
 and small, and perplexing poor Julius with the 
 advice he was no longer capacitated to give ; 
 and young Egerton was by this time aware
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 89 
 
 that the smallest curacy in the three kingdoms 
 would have afforded him a more agreeable pro- 
 fessional start than the house where, though a 
 man and a distinguished one, he was still 
 treated as a boy. Old Spry, even in his dotage, 
 was unable to divest himself of the habits of the 
 schoolmaster ; or Miss Rachel, of those be- 
 queathed to her (with the care of the "boys" 
 and little Olivia) by her deceased mamma. 
 Though proud and fond of her nephew, she 
 could not forbear tormenting him with repri- 
 mands about rubbing his shoes on the door- mat ; 
 or intruding into his study at midnight with 
 advice about putting out the fire and candle. 
 While representing him far and near as '' a 
 Daniel come to judgment, yea ! a Daniel," she 
 seemed to think him incapable of being trusted 
 out of her sight. 
 
 All this was borne by Julius with exemplary 
 patience, considering how largely he was en- 
 dowed with those fine faculties of genius which 
 are supposed to convey the privilege of irrita- 
 bility. But he was aware that the reversion of 
 the living had been solicited for him by his
 
 90 preferment; or, 
 
 father on the express condition of his serving 
 as a bondsman during the survivorship of Dr. 
 Spry ; and that aunt Rachel, though a trouble- 
 some, officious vroman, was sincere in her attach- 
 ment to her sister and her sister's family ; that 
 her pains-taking thrift was intended for their 
 future benefit ; and that, despite a few weak- 
 nesses and infirmities, the heart of the fidgety 
 spinster was in the right place. 
 
 It was not on him alone that her privilege of 
 persecution was exercised. Her pretence of 
 setting all the world to rights extended from 
 the tambour-frame at Hurley House to the easy 
 chair of the old Doctor, whom she would not 
 allow to put a grain more salt in his basin of 
 broth than comported with her notions of the 
 wholesome. As she said, she had really some 
 right to dictate. — As she said, she had been 
 making a slave of herself from her earliest years ; 
 and the poor old gentleman not being ready 
 enough to remind her that the greater part of 
 her labours were the creation of her own offi- 
 ciousness, she remained a self-asserted martyr 
 and a self-asserting despot.
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 91 
 
 As far as possible, young Egerton continued 
 to remain apart from the family, the atmosphere 
 of whose stifling parlour was as overpowering 
 to his body as the triviality of their pursuits to 
 his mind. It was not for one of his age and 
 endowments to listen to the minute recital of 
 the morning papers; read aloud leisurely 
 and audibly by Miss Rachel to the old Doctor, 
 with notes commentatorial upon the private 
 history of every Lord Thomas and Lady Cathe- 
 rine figuring in the most insignificant para- 
 graphs. — One was cousin to the cousin of Dr. 
 Spry's former pupil, the Marquis of Easthamp- 
 ton ; another, grandson to a former pupil of the 
 late Mrs. Spry; and even when no immediate 
 chain of connexion could be established between 
 them and Helstone Parsonage, there was Debrett 
 to be consulted for their birth and parentage, 
 arms and motto, — that very identical copy 
 purchased upon the union of the Hon. William, 
 second son of the Earl of Tiverton, with Olivia 
 Sophia, second daughter of Marmaduke Spry, 
 D.D., with all its interleavings and correc-
 
 92 preferment; or, 
 
 tions of the last five-and-tvventy years ! No 
 wonder that Miss Rachel should be so familiar 
 with the marriages and intermarriages of the 
 aristocracy, since her own hand had been the 
 faithful chronicler of their proceedings ; and 
 though the Doctor and his daughter sometimes 
 talked of replacing their favourite volumes by a 
 newer edition, she clung to the interleaved copy, 
 every page of which was as much her own creation 
 as the Earl of Tiverton (when promoted from 
 his Barony of Egerton) the king's. To use her 
 own expression, the information lay handier in 
 her old favourite Debrett. 
 
 It was not from her nephew that the proposal 
 of replacement emanated. Julius entertained 
 the utmost reverence for the two well-thumbed 
 tomes which, by affording occupation to Miss 
 Rachel's crow-quill pen, secured him some res- 
 pite from her interference. 
 
 '' Well, what was stirring in town?" in- 
 quired the maiden aunt, laying aside this fa- 
 vourite diversion and her spectacles, on the even- 
 ing of Julius's return to Helstone.
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 93 
 
 " Nothing very interesting. More disturb- 
 ances, I fear, in Canada; but" — 
 
 '' I don't care for public news," interrupted 
 Miss Rachel ; " one has enough of that from 
 the newspapers." 
 
 " I was told that the Bishop of Rochester was 
 seriously ill." 
 
 '* That is news, my dear ! Whom are we 
 likely to have in his place ?" cried the calcu- 
 lating spinster. 
 
 " I did not inquire. The loss of so good a 
 man would be severely felt, not only by his 
 family, but" — 
 
 *' Yes ; I know. But it was very generally 
 said when he was ill last year, that Dr. Wilks 
 was first on the list for a bishopric. — Think 
 what a stroke for r/ou, my dear Julius, if we were 
 to get Dr. Wilks !"— 
 
 " It would be a heavy stroke for the diocese 
 were the present bishop to drop. His family, 
 too, — a family of" — 
 
 " Just hand me down the second volume of 
 Debrett, — no, the first — no, the second. Let 
 me see !—^ Where are the Irish Dukes? — .^ Third
 
 94 preferment; or, 
 
 son of the late Lord John Monteagle.' Yes ! — 
 just as you say, — seven children. I remember 
 inserting, two years ago, the birth of Mrs. Mont- 
 eagle's last, — ' a daughter ?' — exactly ; — I see it 
 was a daughter, and the one before, a boy. The 
 eldest child (who must now be sixteen) was also 
 a daughter. How very provoking ! — I have 
 hardly left room at the bottom of the page to 
 announce the poor Bishop's decease !" 
 
 " I trust you may not be called upon for the 
 task. There is not a more eminent divine on 
 the"— 
 
 " Did you call at Cowie's about the plated 
 toast-rack ?" — interrupted Miss Rachel. 
 
 " I am sorry to say that — " 
 
 " Now, pray, my dear, don't tell me that you 
 forgot it," cried the lady, snappishly. «' It 
 was only the second article on your list." 
 
 " The first, which was a commission at 
 Hatchard's, I executed the day I arrived. I 
 have brought down all the works on your list ; 
 but unluckily, yesterday, as I was proceeding to 
 Long Acre about the toast-rack — " 
 
 <' How very inconsiderate !" interrupted Miss
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 95 
 
 Rachel, prepared by the qualifying adverb for 
 the worst. — " And when you knew that I had 
 set my mind upon that toast-rack." 
 
 " I met at the corner of St. James's Street 
 a person whom it gave me so much pleasure to 
 see, that, I confess, I lost all recollection of your 
 commission," resumed her nephew. 
 
 '* Ay, ay ! I prophesied before you set out, 
 you know, that you would forget half.*' 
 
 '* At all events, I have not fulfilled your pre- 
 diction by bringing you home ' a gross of green 
 spectacles with copper rims and shagreen cases," 
 replied Julius, good humouredly. " At the 
 moment of setting off home, I recollected my 
 omission and procured a substitute, which I 
 trust you will accept instead of the — " 
 
 " My dear Julius, this is really very atten- 
 tive and handsome of you," exclaimed Miss 
 Spry. " But I assure you, my dear, I would 
 much rather have had the thing I asked for 
 instead of this beautiful piece of plate, which is 
 too rich for every-day use." 
 
 " On the contrary, plated articles are unfit 
 for daily use ; while silver is calculated — " 
 '* And pray," again interrupted Miss Rachel,
 
 96 preferment; or, 
 
 " who was the person you were so delighted 
 to see as to forget my list of commissions? — Some 
 college chum, I suppose?" 
 
 *' No ! my cousin, Dick Egerton.'* 
 
 " Your what, my dear ?" — 
 
 *' Lord Tiverton's second son." 
 
 "Reach me down the other volume of De- 
 brett, Julius. Page 164 — Ay, ay ! — See how 
 naturally it opens at the Tiverton peerage ! — 
 ' Second son, the Hon. Richard Egerton Eger- 
 ton, born the 13th December, 18 — ' Ah, 
 
 my dear Julius, well do I remember making that 
 unfortunate entry." 
 
 " Unfortunate ?" — 
 
 '« So long as Lord and Lady Egerton had but 
 one son, there was some leetle chance, you know, 
 for my poor, dear brother-in-law, or, at all events, 
 for poor, dear John ; but, as I said to poor, dear 
 Livy, (for we happened to be staying at Hurley 
 at the time,) this odious second son puts an ex- 
 tinguisher on all our hopes. But how came you 
 acquainted with him ?" — 
 
 '* Egerton was staying at Storby Castle when 
 I was there last year." 
 
 ** And you never mentioned it to me before !"
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 97 
 
 " Inveterate as you are against Lord Tiver- 
 ton's family, I thought it would annoy you to 
 talk about him." 
 
 " Inveterate, indeed ! — and reason good ! — 
 From the day of Lord Tiverton's succeeding to 
 the title, (let me see, — give me that volume of 
 Debrett again,) six years and three months ago, 
 — not so much as an invitation to any member 
 of his brother's family ! Certainly, the late lord 
 had the decency to invite my poor, dear brother- 
 in-law, summer after summer ; and though he 
 knew that nothing would induce William to 
 accept the invitation, the attention was 
 the same. But now, not the smallest token 
 of civility." 
 
 " Lord Tiverton was offended at my father's 
 applying to the Duke of Pelham for a living, 
 when he had so much preferment in his gift ; it 
 was like publishing to the world that he had no 
 reliance on his brother." 
 
 *' That I suppose is the view of the case sug- 
 'gested by your friend, Mr. Richard Egerton 
 Egerton ?" cried aunt Rachel, eager for the 
 honour of a measure of her own concoction. 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 98 prefermj:nt; or, 
 
 " No ; it has always been my opinion. 
 Lord Tiverton procured John his commission, 
 and interested himself about his promotion, and 
 would probably have done as much for me had 
 my father waited.*' 
 
 " Waited, forsooth ! — waited till his own 
 brother felt the workings of a brotherly 
 spirit ! — Julius, it is monstrous to talk of 
 such a thing. — Depend upon it. Lord and 
 Lady Tiverton are two heartless, unprin- 
 cipled people." 
 
 '' Not if I am to judge of them by their son. 
 Dick Egerton is the most charming fellow, — 
 the cleverest, the most agreeable," — 
 
 " I suppose he thought it amusing to shew off 
 before one of his clodpole cousins." 
 
 " On the contrary, I was a fortnight in the 
 house w^ith him before he discovered the con- 
 nexion between us. Some misconception on 
 Lord Storby's part, or his own, induced him to 
 fancy that I was the son of an Irish baronet ; 
 and so far was the explanation of our near rela- 
 tionship from producing any increase of atten- 
 tion, that I must confess there has been less cor-
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 99 
 
 diality between us as cousins than as common 
 acquaintances." 
 
 " He has never invited you, then, to St. 
 James's Square ?" 
 
 *' If his father and mother are such people 
 as you describe, he is not likely to enjoy the 
 privilege of inviting his friends. But he has had 
 no opportunity. Egerton was going straight 
 from Storbv Castle to Paris, where he has been 
 ever since ; and when I met him yesterday, I 
 told him at once that I was in town only for a 
 few hours." 
 
 " Lady Tiverton was one of the great 
 beauties of her day. Is her son good 
 looking ?" 
 
 " I never saw finer features. And Storby 
 informs me that Egerton*s two sisters are the 
 handsomest girls in town." 
 
 '' You might surely have made that a pretext 
 for wishing to get presented to the family?" 
 pleaded aunt Rachel. 
 
 '' I felt no wish to make their acquaintance. 
 The Tivertons have been most ungracious to my 
 father and mother ; and as to my personal inte- 
 
 F 2
 
 100 preferment; or, 
 
 rests, thanks to the Duke of Pelham, they are 
 secured." 
 
 " Secured ? — By the promise of a Hving of 
 four hundred and eighty pounds per annum, — 
 out of which the demands upon you will be con- 
 siderable. You call that being provided for ? — 
 You call that being independent of Lord Tiver- 
 ton? — Reflect for a moment, my dear, upon 
 what you are saying ! Are you likely to content 
 yourself for life with four hundred and eighty 
 pounds a-year ? — Supposing, for instance, you 
 should wish to marry, your income (even when 
 you attain the enjoyment of it, which may not 
 be for ten or fifteen years to come,) will not 
 enable you to support a wife and family; unless, 
 indeed, you should follow up the scheme 1 have 
 so often recommended, and marry Georgiana 
 Heseltine, who will not have a penny less than 
 eighty thousand pounds, and who — " 
 
 '' Since you have entered into that endless 
 chapter, my dear aunt,'' cried Julius, rising, 
 and preparing to retreat into his own room, 
 '* I must wish you good night. My absence 
 from home has doubled the usual business
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 101 
 
 on my hands. Pray forgive me if I proceed 
 to work." And, without waiting for Miss 
 Rachel's detainer, Juhus hurried away, dread- 
 ing a renewal of one of her most tiresome 
 themes for dissertation. 
 
 Julius had really, however, a world of busi- 
 ness on his hands. The workings of his 
 active mind gave him at all times ample 
 employment. He was at the age when the 
 search after truth is in itself an engrossing 
 occupation ; and brilliant as had been his 
 academic career, it was well known to the asso- 
 ciates of young Egerton that his most pro- 
 found studies and most extensive reading 
 lay in directions scarcely of a nature to ad- 
 vance his professional honours. No man of 
 his age could have read more, or have profited 
 more largely by his reading ; and such of 
 his solitary hours as he could estrange from 
 the claims of his calling, were still devoted 
 to literary and philosophical pursuits, ren- 
 dering doubly vexatious Aunt Rachel's in- 
 trusions upon his time, the very moments of 
 which were numbered.
 
 102 preferment; or, 
 
 But on retiring upon the present occasion to 
 his chamber, Julius had other occupation than to 
 prepare his Sunday's sermon, examine the list of 
 pretendents to parish benevolence, or even cast 
 his longing eyes over the pages of the new works 
 he had brought down from Hatchard's. Julius 
 was beginning to open the uncut volume of life, 
 where every fresh page affords such serious 
 matter for contemplation. Glibly as he had 
 expressed himself to Miss Rachel touching the 
 merits of his cousin, he was secretly hurt by 
 Dick Egerton's altered mode of greeting. How- 
 ever unversed in the fastidious glances of fashiour- 
 able life, he could not but discern the embar- 
 rassment of Egerton's manner when he stopped 
 him and extended his hand. There was none 
 of the frank cordiality which had prevailed 
 between them at Storby. Either Egerton had 
 since conceived a disparaging personal opinion 
 of him; or aunt Rachel's surmise was just, and 
 the family in St. James's Square wished to esta- 
 blish an impassable barrier between themselves 
 and the family at Hurley House. 
 
 This notion was deeply mortifying to the
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 103 
 
 feelings of Julius. It was neither his pride nor 
 his self-interest that took the alarm ; and Lord 
 Egerton would have been welcome to withdraw 
 his hand without extracting more than a smile 
 from the lips of his contemned cousin. But 
 towards the younger brother he felt otherwise. 
 Of all the men he had ever seen, Dick Egerton *s 
 joyous, and apparently ingenuous, disposition 
 most attracted his regard. He liked him — 
 he almost loved him — and longed to be liked or 
 loved in return. The friendly advances made 
 by Dick, while yet unaware of their relationship, 
 had induced him to hope that the preference 
 was mutual ; but the coldness of the averted 
 eye in their recent interview convinced poor 
 Julius that he was mistaken, or that some un- 
 explained cause had put an end to the intimacy. 
 It was in vain that the young pastor assured 
 himself " it was of no great consequence — that 
 the world had friends in store for him as valuable, 
 if not as fascinating, as his fashionable cousin — 
 and, above all, that the regard of his warm- 
 hearted brother, and the tender affection of his 
 sister, ought to render him independent of 
 casual friendships."
 
 104 preferment; or, 
 
 Still, as he turned the page of the heavy folio 
 before him, his thoughts kept reverting to the 
 gay demeanour and speaking countenance of 
 Dick Egerton as he had first beheld him, 
 keeping the table in a roar, or a circle of ac- 
 complished women on the attractive, in the 
 brilliant saloons of Storby Castle. At that 
 period, Egerton had actually exerted himself 
 to make a conquest of the w^onderful Trinity 
 man, who was likely to make a sensation in the 
 world of letters ; had abstained from battues to 
 spend mornings with him in picturesque excur- 
 sions, or in listening to scraps of ancient poesy, 
 to which the exquisite taste of Julius imparted 
 a double charm. It was difficult not to revert 
 to all this — it was impossible to revert to it 
 without pain. 
 
 How, in fact, was a person so untaught in the 
 ways of the world as the admirable Crichton of 
 Trinity — the saint of Helstone Parsonage, — to 
 conjecture the enormous distance that separated 
 him from theyounger son of the Earl of Tiverton ; 
 how was he to know that, though cousins by 
 blood, (the nearest remove from brotherhood,) 
 there was as much distinction between them as
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 105 
 
 between a lord-mayor and a chimney-sweep ? 
 For Dick Egerton, with talents and connexion, 
 was in a situation to aspire to anything below 
 the throne ; while all the promotion likely to 
 befal Dr. Spry's grandson, was to progress from 
 a needy curate into a poor parson. 
 
 The soul of Julius rebelled against the decree. 
 The notion that inferiority of station had exposed 
 him to the coldness of one so superior to the 
 common herd of young men as Dick Egerton, 
 set him to the task of examining his own preten- 
 sions, inherent and inherited. The time was 
 not so far distant when he had wandered over 
 the romantic scenery of Tiverton, and drunk of 
 its cup of splendour, as the direct descendant of 
 its late proprietor, as to admit of his feeling de- 
 graded below the level of its present. If society 
 were so framed as to admit of such instabilities, 
 it must be in a corrupt condition, and its 
 rewards and profits were below the care of any 
 honest man. 
 
 His musings ended with a heavy sigh, in a 
 resolve to content himself with the affection of 
 his family and the reverence of the flock com- 
 
 f3
 
 106 preferment; or, 
 
 mitted to his charge ; which, long accustomed 
 to the mumbled generalities of its superannuated 
 rector, was so infatuated by the fervid eloquence 
 of its new teacher as already to have surnamed 
 him '* The St. John of Helstone."
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 107 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 II n'est point de sup^riorite morale que ne trahisse 
 I'homme par quelque faiblesse ; et si I'homme etait parfait, 
 il ne serait plus question de le peindre; il suffirait de le 
 nommer. — Charles Nodier. 
 
 Undisturbed, meanwhile, by the contempts 
 of the elder branch of the family, the Egertdns 
 of Hurley House pursued the even tenour of 
 their way, happier than at any preceding epoch 
 of their lives. They were neither richer nor 
 greater than of old. On the contrary, had Aunt 
 Rachel's favourite volumes been of later date, 
 they would have reminded the Egertons that 
 instead of figuring as direct descendants of an 
 earl, they were now classed in the peerage 
 among the collaterals. But Mrs. Eger ton's 
 plain good sense troubled itself no further with
 
 108 preferment; or, 
 
 such details. She and her husband had taken 
 their own position in the world. They were 
 respected, as unpretending respectability is sure 
 to be; and as to William, instead of piquing 
 himself upon his Honourableness, he was twenty 
 times prouder of his pretty daughter and hand- 
 some sons, all three of whom (as he was fond of 
 relating to the strangers to whom he was intro- 
 duced on the Pantiles) "were settled in life, 
 and in a way to do well in the world." 
 
 John Egerton was at present with his regi- 
 ment at Malta, working his way to a company ; 
 Julius, preaching all the dissenting chapels 
 empty within five miles of Helstone ; and Harry, 
 a junior lieutenant on board the Asia, was 
 cruising in the Mediterranean. The young 
 men were doing credit to themselves and their 
 parents; and though their absence made a sad 
 gap in the Hurley circle, — though the Christmas 
 fireside was no longer noisy nor the summer 
 expeditions to Eridge or Hever so merry as of 
 old, Mary was becoming an object of consider- 
 able attraction to the house. Letters from the 
 boys, too, formed a constant source of interest to
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 109 
 
 the gratified father and mother. As to Julius, 
 though settled only twenty miles from home, 
 he seldom found an opportunity to ride over ; 
 but then, as Miss Rachel was fond of ob- 
 servino:, "his attendance on the old Doctor 
 set her completely at liberty ; and she was twice 
 as often able to spend a week at Hurley for 
 a glimpse at the gay doings of Tunbridge 
 Wells." 
 
 These visits, though accepted with respect by 
 Mrs. Egerton in memory of the former mo- 
 therly care of her elder sister, were looked 
 forward to with some dread by Mary, for whose 
 establishment in life aunt Rachel was apt to 
 indulge in manoeuvres akin to those which had 
 made her sister Livy the wife of the old doctor's 
 honourable pupil ; but still more by Mary's 
 favourite friend, Georgiana Heseltine, the only 
 daughter of a retired East India captain, whose 
 park was divided by a low fence from the 
 grounds of Hurley House. Miss Heseltine was, 
 in fact, as much afraid that Miss Rachel might 
 provide a wife for her father, as Mary Egerton 
 that she would take some extraordinary means of 
 finding her a husband.
 
 110 preferment; or, 
 
 On the summer succeeding Juliuses memorable 
 visit to London, for instance, Miss Rachel came 
 to spend a fortnight with the Egertons as if for 
 the express purpose of introducing a drop of 
 hyssop into their cup of domestic sweets. She 
 was angry with them for being so abjectly con- 
 tented with their lot, when there was a spot in 
 their destinies that required very little rubbing 
 to fester into a serious evil. 
 
 " Is it not amazingly lucky," observed Mrs. 
 Efferton, as soon as her sister was established in 
 the cozy little chamber which went by the name 
 of aunt Rachel's room, " that the Asia should 
 have been appointed to the Mediterranean 
 station ! Harry will probably pass the greater 
 part of the winter at Malta, and the boys see 
 each other every day." 
 
 " Humph ! yes, lucky enough, as you say ;. it 
 is as well for brothers to be as much as possible 
 together in their boyhood, for when they grow 
 to be men, the chances are they will pass each 
 other in the street without speaking." 
 
 " John and Harry pass each other in the 
 street without speaking ? My dear sister, what
 
 MY UNCLE THE EAKL. Ill 
 
 an idea to enter your head !" — cried Mrs. Eger- 
 ton, with indignation. 
 
 " Not John and Harry, but Captain Egerton 
 and Colonel Egerton may know as little of each 
 other twenty years hence as William Egerton, 
 Adolphus Egerton, and my Lord Tiverton, do 
 now." 
 
 '* I rather think not !" cried Olivia, with 
 spirit. " In the first place, Captain Egerton 
 and Colonel Egerton (if, please God, my two 
 sons ever attain such rank) will continue to feel 
 towards each other as brothers who have been 
 brought up in a loving family, by impartial 
 parents, not like the unfortunate sons of such a 
 woman as the old Countess.*' 
 
 "The old Countess, who, by the way, has been 
 pinned down at Bath by rheumatic gout these 
 four years past without so much as a thought 
 of her sons or their squabbles, cannot, I imagine, 
 be the cause of Lord Tiverton's sending his 
 brother to Coventry." 
 
 " Lord Tiverton has not sent his brother to 
 Coventry. It was he, you know, who got John 
 promoted."
 
 112 preferment; or, 
 
 " A lieutenancy in a marching regiment ! — a 
 fine gift, forsooth, to a nephew, who, in case he 
 dies without issue, must succeed to his property, 
 from an uncle who has votes in both houses, 
 and not a favour on earth to ask of govern- 
 ment, — No, no, Livy, my dear ! — Everybody 
 knows that the Earl is a most unnatural brother, 
 or he would have invited you all long ago to 
 Tiverton Castle. 
 
 " And what should I do when I got there, 
 between his fine lady wife and fantastical lady 
 daughters ?" 
 
 *' A very selfish view of the case, my dear ; 
 you ought to be thinking of poor Mary !" 
 
 " The very reason I feel no regret that an 
 intimacy should have dropped which might 
 have led her into society beyond her sphere; 
 an indulgence sure to end in mortification arid 
 disappointment." 
 
 " I cannot consider her father's family society 
 beyond her sphere," remonstrated Miss Rachel, 
 primly. ''Mary Egerton has a right to move 
 in the circle of either her father or her mother's 
 family ; but by making a match among the
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 113 
 
 former she is more likely to advance the inter- 
 ests of her brothers.'** 
 
 " I should be sorry my poor girl's happi- 
 ness were risked for the sake of giving a lift to 
 my sons," cried Mrs. Egerton, v^^armly. 
 
 *' Does it follow that a marriage must 
 turn out unlucky because the bridegroom 
 happens to be prime minister or lord chan- 
 cellor ?— " 
 
 '' A prime minister or lord chancellor ! — now 
 you are romancing indeed !" — cried Olivia, with 
 a laugh. 
 
 " And why not, pray ? — The whole cabinet is 
 entertained in succession by Lord and Lady 
 Tiverton. Only notice the list of their dinner 
 parties and routs in the " Morning Post !" And 
 why should not Mary have as good a chance 
 among them as others ? — Everybody admits 
 that she is the prettiest girl this season at the 
 Wells." 
 
 " Everybody says so to us. However, I do 
 not want to decry my child. She is better than 
 handsome, — an excellent daughter and sister." 
 " I tell you she is amazingly admired,
 
 114 preferment; or, 
 
 and I have no doubt that if once introduced 
 into good society, she would catch up some 
 match likely to be the making of her 
 family/* 
 
 " I don't want her to catch up a match, and 
 I flatter myself she does move in good society," 
 persisted Mrs. Egerton, warmly. " We dine 
 with Lord Abergavenny twice a year, and at 
 Summerhill, and at " 
 
 '' Pho, pho, pho ! what use is all that, so long 
 as you are not taken up by Lord and Lady 
 Tiverton ? — A poor Honourable, who is not 
 acknowledged by the head of his family ! — " 
 
 ** But William is acknowledged by the head 
 of his family !" interrupted Olivia. " How can 
 he be otherwise than acknowledged by his own 
 brother ? — " 
 
 " Ay, ay, — a pretty brother, forsooth, who 
 allows a nephew, the second wrangler of his 
 year, to go plodding on with sixty pounds' 
 salary as a country curate, when he does not 
 know what to do with his church preferment ! — " 
 
 " That, I fear, is our own fault," resumed 
 Olivia.
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 115 
 
 *' And who instructs his lordship's sons, pray," 
 persisted Miss Rachel, "to pass their cousins 
 in the street without speaking? — Such a young 
 man as Julius, too ! — " 
 
 " What do you mean about Julius ?" inquired 
 Mrs. Egerton, with reddening cheeks ; and the 
 acquaintance formed by her son at Storby 
 Castle was forthwith recounted to her, in a 
 tone intended to rouse her utmost indigna- 
 tion. 
 
 " Lord Tiverton has never so much as seen 
 the boys," said she, mildly, at the close of 
 the vexatious narration, *' or he might view 
 them in the light that we do. I often regret 
 that, instead of keeping up the family grudge 
 and standing so much on his own dignity, Wil- 
 liam did not take them with him straight to St. 
 James's Square on his father's death, and 
 demand his brother's protection. But then, to 
 be sure. Lady Tiverton is such a terrible wo- 
 man !— " 
 
 " What makes her so very terrible, pray ? 
 She was born inferior in rank and fortune to 
 your husband, — (see Debrett, page 845,) — one
 
 116 preferment; or, 
 
 of the five daughters of an Irish viscount, with- 
 out a guinea to her fortune ! — " 
 
 "Well, she makes it up in pride ; but don't let 
 us talk of her, it only puts unchristianly thoughts 
 into my head ; and as I have no secrets from 
 William, I am apt to let out things about the 
 family that vex him. Have you brought me no 
 letter from Julius ? — '* 
 
 " Not a word — not even a line to his sister ! 
 Between ourselves, Livy, I am convinced the 
 poor fellow is writing a book ; he sits up half 
 the night, and, instead of his former brilliant 
 complexion, is beginning to look as sallow as 
 a Spanish Don." 
 
 " With his fine line of countenance, Julius 
 can never look otherwise than handsome." 
 
 '' It's all very well for us to say so — I only 
 wish we could get Miss Heseltine to think 
 so. 
 
 " Georgy Heseltine ? — I hope poor Julius 
 does not turn his thoughts that way," 
 cried Mrs. Egerton. " Mary, who is in all 
 her secrets, was saying yesterday that John and 
 Harry were quite the favourites at Eastwick —
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 117 
 
 Harry with the old captain, and Jack with his 
 daughter." 
 
 " Girls of Miss Heseltine's age are sure to be 
 taken by the eclaw of a red coat !" sneered Miss 
 Rachel. " As to Captain Heseltine, I forgive 
 him, because, though the scrapes brought on by 
 his absence of mind rendered it desirable for 
 him to retire from his profession, his heart 
 is always at sea and his mind too. He passes 
 his life in reading voyages of discovery, 
 and cogitating over them. When one spends 
 the evening at Eastwick, he is sure to blurt out, 
 after a dead silence, some strange remark about 
 the New Zealanders, or the Esquimaux Indians, 
 or whatever out-of-the-way people he has 
 read of last. He likes Harry Egerton as a 
 spirited lad who chose to go into the navy; but, 
 depend upon it, Julius is the one who would suit 
 him as a son-in-law. Julius would read to him, 
 and attend the Geographical, African, North- 
 Western Passage, and all the other societies, 
 with him. Julius would reason him out of his 
 oddities." 
 
 " Then he would be very much to blame,"
 
 118 preferment; or, 
 
 cried Mrs. Egerton. " Captain Heseltine is an 
 excellent neighbour, and a very good man ; and 
 it would be great presumption on the part of my 
 son to begin lecturing a person old enough to 
 be his grandfather. I should be sorry to find 
 him forget the respect due to our friend Cap- 
 tain Heseltine." 
 
 " Or to your friend Captain Heseltine's one 
 hundred and twenty thousand pounds," added 
 Aunt Rachel, significantly. " All your respect 
 for him, however, would do little towards se- 
 curing his daughter for your son, were it not for 
 my pushing matters forward." 
 
 *' Matters relating to love and matrimony," 
 observed Mrs. Egerton, " get on best when left 
 to themselves ; and as neither of my sons is in 
 a situation to make proposals to the daughter of 
 a rich man like Captain Heseltine, I should be 
 sorry to find the good understanding between 
 the families broken up by any appearance of 
 what he might construe into interested views." 
 
 " Interested, indeed !" retorted her sister. 
 " Ay, ay, Livy, I see how it is. You have 
 caught the infection of Egerton 's listless, luke-
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 119 
 
 warm ways, as if good luck were to come and 
 hunt you out while you lay asleep. ' Help 
 yourself, and Heaven will help you,' is the 
 only modern proverb worth learning by 
 rote. — However, I have done. — All I in- 
 tended was for the good of the family, and if 
 you are afraid that my zeal for my nephew 
 should give grounds to Captain Heseltine for 
 considering you and William Egerton shabby 
 people, God forbid that I should ever stir 
 another step in the matter. As I said before, 
 my dear Livy, I have done." 
 
 Mrs. Egerton knew very well that she had 
 not done. But perceiving that her sister was 
 vexed, she wisely dropped the subject ; trusting 
 only that during her visit to Hurley Miss 
 Rachel might not, by some flagrant act of 
 pushing, excite the suspicions of their Eastwick 
 neighbour. 
 
 Captain Heseltine, however, was a man into 
 whose mind suspicion never entered. Rarely 
 was he sufficiently himself for perception of 
 passing events — never for anticipation of those to 
 come. Though present in the body, he was
 
 120 preferment; or, 
 
 usually absent in the mind ; and for any share he 
 took in the amusements of society, might just as 
 well have remained immured in the study, hung 
 round with charts and garnished with bookcases, 
 into which he had retreated from the activities 
 of professional life. Profoundly afflicted by the 
 loss of the excellent wife who had borne with his 
 oddities, and devoted her life to averting their 
 disagreeable results, Captain Heseltine had re- 
 tired to East wick with little more than half the 
 fortune which East India captains usually intend 
 to realize; — that is to say, he had not thrown 
 away his first one hundred and fifty thousand 
 pounds in speculating to procure a second. , 
 
 Fortunately, Georgiana was old enough at her 
 mother's death for the prudent wife to point 
 out her father's infirmities of mind to her care 
 and respect ; and, at a very early age. Miss 
 Heseltine quietly set about the task of managing 
 his affairs and ministering to his comfort. But 
 for her prudent management, his house and 
 fortune would have been suffered to go to wreck, 
 \^ile the Captain was pursuing imaginary voy- 
 ages on the surface of one of Adams's globes :
 
 MY UNCLE THE EAUL. 121 
 
 and bewildering his undei'standing with computa- 
 tions of the atmospheric phenomena of the Andes. 
 Baffled in the tastes which had originally sug- 
 gested his choice of a profession, the Captain 
 found no resource for his restlessness but imagi- 
 nary locomotion. His interest in the things of 
 this world was accordingly bounded by the pro- 
 gress of geographical discovery ; and not a book 
 of voyages or travels issued from the press but 
 found a haven in the Hbrary at Eastwick. 
 Compass in hand, he was to be seen every 
 morning with one of these magic volumes, 
 poring over his maps and charts ; or musing in 
 his chintz dressing-gown over his cup of tea, 
 upon the stratification of the rocks of New Zea- 
 land, or the establishment of a colony at Nootka 
 Sound, 
 
 Creation's heir, the world, the world was his. 
 
 "While his neighbour, William Egerton, seemed 
 to fancy that the universe was comprised within 
 the hedges bounding the twenty acres of grass 
 land lying under the authority of his scythe, old 
 Heseltine was conscious of the existence of 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 122 preferment; or, 
 
 nothing within five hundred miles of him, — a 
 haze obscured from his view all proximate 
 objects. For Mm there was no Eastwick, no 
 Hurley, no Tunbridge Wells, no London ; the 
 nearest points of which he took cognizance were 
 the Hebrides and the Giant's Causeway. 
 
 Without in the slightest degree failing in 
 respect for her father, who, in moral points, was a 
 worthy and estimable man, Georgiana Hesel- 
 tine, a lively, intelligent girl, was fully on her 
 guard against the evil consequences of his sim- 
 plicity of character. In fifty instances she had 
 saved him, without apparent interposition, from 
 becoming the dupe of the designing, to whom 
 his abstraction of mind pointed him out as an 
 easy prey. But there was a person who excited 
 her misgivings almost as much as the sharpers, 
 who, in the course of their professional visits to 
 the Wells, had contrived to establish a footing 
 at Eastwick ; a person against whom her regard 
 for the family at Hurley House prevented her 
 adopting preventive measures. 
 
 During the five years that had elapsed since 
 her mother's death, the Egertons had been her
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 123 
 
 daily companions ; the matronly heart of Mrs. 
 Egerton being sorely moved towards the delicate 
 little girl of fourteen, who, in her crape and 
 bombazine, laboured to dry up her filial tears in 
 order to become a cheerful companion to her . 
 bereaved father ; and almost from the day of 
 Georgiana's instalment in her new home, Mary 
 Egerton had become an adopted sister. The 
 young Egertons having already quitted Hurley, 
 the inconvenience was avoided of a too familiar 
 intimacy between young people of an opposite 
 sex; and there was consequently no drawback 
 to the friendly footing established by such imme- 
 diate neighbourship, that three fourths of the 
 Hurley paddock were skirted by the shrubbery- 
 palings of Eastwick Lodge. 
 
 In a worldly point of view the intimacy was 
 well assorted ; for though Captain Heseltine was 
 in the enjoyment of an income sixfold the 
 amount of William Egerton's thousand a-year, 
 the prefix of " Honourable,'' which has been 
 already described as throwing considerable 
 weight into the scale in such a spot as the neigh- 
 bourhood of Tunbridge Wells, assigned to the 
 
 g2
 
 124 PREFERMENT ; OR, 
 
 Egertons higher social distinctions ; and Hurley 
 House was visited by divers parks and castles, 
 which ignored the existence of Eastwick. This 
 nice adjustment of claims served only to tran- 
 quillize the scruples of the poorer neighbours ; 
 for as to the Captain, having once received the 
 assurance of the auctioneer who sold him the 
 estate that his nearest neighbour was a gen- 
 tleman of the most undoubted respectability, he 
 felt no hesitation in allowing his daughter to 
 spend several hours of every day in company 
 with Mary and her mother; who were kind 
 enough to let her share their rides and walks, 
 while he was grilling himself in imagination in 
 the Torrid route to Timbuctoo, or quaking in 
 the perilous regions of thick-ribbed ice of Arctic 
 adventure. He was fully alive to the advantage 
 of that matronly protection which enabled him 
 so to extend his mental wanderings as never to 
 be within a thousand leagues of home. 
 
 Habits of early independence, meanwhile, 
 tended to mature the character of Georgiana. 
 She had been compelled to judge and act not 
 only for herself but for her father ; and it was
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 125 
 
 perhaps fortunate that the companionship of so 
 good a woman as Mrs. Egerton, and so gentle 
 and feminine a girl as Mary, prevented her from 
 acquiring the opinionativeness too often the 
 result of such a position. 
 
 But if the influence of her friends at Hurley 
 served to soften Georgiana's manners, it did not 
 suffice to blind her to the officiousness of Miss 
 Rachel Spry. Dearly as she loved the Egertons, 
 she had no patience with the fussy aunt, as dic- 
 tatorial as if her opinions were worth listening 
 tOj who was constantly annoying her with advice 
 and instructions. The Captain, like most 
 studious men, could not bear his seclusion to be 
 broken in upon ; but Miss Rachel, who had 
 been too long dominatress over the pupils at 
 Helstone, and of late years over its feeble incum- 
 bent, to apprehend having her determination re- 
 sisted, was in the habit of walking as resolutely 
 into his study as if she had not been fifty times 
 assured that the mere opening of the door suf- 
 ficed to derange his calculations ; and, what was 
 worse, she seemed to find it as difficult to go as 
 easy to come.
 
 126 preferment; or, 
 
 For some time Georgiana resisted. The 
 moment she caught sight at a distance of Miss 
 Rachel's faded nankeen pelisse, green veil, and 
 amber spectacles crossing the lawn, she hastened 
 to lock the doors of the vestibule leading to her 
 father's study, in order to monopolize the key 
 during Miss Rachel's visitation; and Captain 
 Heseltine, though unaware of her interposition 
 m his favour, attested by his self-gratulations at 
 dinner on having had the morning to himself, 
 that the manoeuvre had prospered. 
 
 But to repel the attacks of a gossiping old 
 maid, with her time at her own disposal, is a 
 hopeless task. So long as an auger hole remained. 
 Miss Rachel contrived to creep in ; and when, 
 in the sequel, Georgiana discovered that her 
 father's dislike of the lady in the green veil and 
 nankeen pelisse was gradually subsiding, — that 
 he quoted her as a very superior woman, and 
 ceased to complain of the frequency of her in- 
 roads, — she trembled at the idea that the tire- 
 some woman's visits might purport more than 
 a mere disposal of her leisure, and that there 
 might be " miching malicho" in aunt Rachel.
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 127 
 
 It was not difficult to discover by what means 
 the nankeen pelisse had recommended itself to 
 the favour of Captain Heseltine. Laying aside 
 the two courtly volumes forming hitherto the 
 limit of her studies, Miss Rachel had exchanged 
 Debrett for such articles of the leading reviews 
 of the day as regarded the favourite works of 
 the geographico maniac. Aided by their prompt- 
 ings, " ignorance itself became a plummet over 
 him/' Miss Rachel was able to correct all his 
 errors — to set bounds to his illimitable vagaries. 
 Thanks to the Edinburgh and Quarterly com- 
 puters of millions of miles and billions of cubic 
 feet, she could reprove the blunders of Sir John 
 Ross, and remove the landmarks set up by Sir 
 Edward Parry, or Captain Back. She had 
 arguments upon the nature of tides and the va- 
 riabilities of temperature at her fingers' ends ; 
 and wherever Captain Heseltine's wanderings 
 were directed, Nepaul or Mexico, — China or 
 Peru, — there was Miss Rachel in advance of 
 him, to prevent his being bamboozled with 
 travellers' wonders, or falling a prey to the de- 
 lusions of designing quarto-mongers.
 
 128 preferment; or, 
 
 Though at first harassed by her opposition, 
 the Captain, on finding her assertions justified 
 by subsequent discoveries, began to consider her 
 a very wonderful woman. He did not dip into 
 such trivialities as reviews or magazines, — poor 
 flimsy pamphlets, unadorned by maps or plates ; 
 and Solomon can scarcely have regarded the 
 Queen of Sheba with greater reverence than 
 did the poor deluded owner of Eastwick Lodge 
 the wise woman of Helstone. 
 
 Long after discovering the nature of the 
 charm worked by the Circe in the nankeen 
 pelisse, Miss Heseltine hesitated to assign a 
 motive to her incantations. Georgiana was then 
 only seventeen, and nothing could be more 
 odiously apparent than the eligibility of her 
 father's taking a second wife to introduce his 
 daughter into society, — a daughter, more especi- 
 ally, whose pecuniary prospects were so brilliant. 
 It was only too probable, therefore, that Miss 
 Rachel, so '* accustomed," as the advertisements 
 say, " to tuition," should aspire to the honour of 
 becoming her chaperon and the mistress of 
 Eastwick Lodge ; and feeling that, with such a
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 129 
 
 mother-in-law, even Eastwick Lodge would be 
 insupportable, Georgiana grew doubly resolute 
 against her incursions. 
 
 She was on the alert whenever Miss Rachel 
 Spry was staying at Hurley House. As far as 
 could be done without offence to Mary Egerton 
 and her mother, she contrived to wave the 
 flaming sword against her ingress. All her 
 cajolements to herself, all her flatteries to the 
 old gentleman, were met with the most repellent 
 coldness. 
 
 That Miss Rachel was courting her for her 
 favourite nephew, was a thing which never en- 
 tered the head of a girl so insensible to her own 
 attractions as Georgiana. Of the three young 
 Egertons, John, the lively, dashing soldier, was 
 the only one who had ever paid her more than 
 the decent attention due to a guest in their 
 father's house ; and even had any of them 
 proved as assiduous to her as Miss Rachel to 
 her father, Georgiana would have considered it 
 the natural consequence of her intimacy with 
 his sister; but that the grave silent Julius 
 could be thouojht of as a suitable husband for
 
 130 preferment; or, 
 
 her merry, active self, was a conjecture too ex- 
 travagant to be entertained. Had any one 
 assigned such a motive for the assiduities of 
 Rachel Spry, Georgiana Heseltine would have 
 shrugged her shoulders at their want of discern- 
 ment.
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 131 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Als as she double spake, so heard she double, 
 With matchless ears deformed and distort, 
 
 Filled with false rumours and seditious trouble 
 Bred in assemblies of the vulgar sort. 
 
 Spenser. 
 
 Such was the state of affairs between Hurley 
 House and Eastwick Lodge when the satisfac- 
 tion of a fine summer's day was broken up by 
 the sudden appearance of Mr. Egerton's good- 
 humoured face over the shubbery-palings, to 
 announce that Miss Rachel had arrived the 
 preceding night to spend a week or two at 
 Hurley. 
 
 " I dare say she would have been here to ask 
 you how you do by this time," continued he, un-
 
 132 preferment; or, 
 
 aware that other people were less indulgent 
 than himself toward the foibles of his trouble- 
 some sister-in-law, — " but she was off to the 
 Wells directly after breakfast on a shopping 
 expedition. You ladies have always a yard or 
 two of sarsnet or calico in prospect, without 
 which it is impossible to exist another day ; and 
 so Miss Spry took the donkey-cart and trotted 
 off the moment she found Olivia had business 
 at home that prevented her going out till after 
 luncheon." 
 
 *'Mary, then, is gone with her aunt?" in- 
 quired Miss Heseitine. 
 
 '* No, aunt Rachel always prefers bar- 
 gain-driving without witnesses. She is gone 
 alone." 
 
 This intelligence was quickly confirmed by a 
 glimpse of Mary Egerton's muslin gown and 
 straw bonnet through the trees of the shrubbery ; 
 and, on her approach, Mr. Egerton nodded his 
 good bye, and set off to make the tour of what 
 he called his farm, while the two girls continued 
 their walk together, 
 
 Eastwick was one of those pretty, compact
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 133 
 
 country-seats peculiar to England. The house 
 scarcely exceeded a villa in dimensions, yet 
 fulfilled all the exactions of our luxurious notions 
 of the comfortable ; with a farm of about a 
 hundred acres in extent, capable of providing 
 for the consumption of the house, at an expense 
 of some hundreds a year to the proprietor, if 
 pretending to the name of gentleman-farmer, 
 The whole was in perfect keeping. The pad- 
 dock (only affecting to be a park because the 
 lady of the stock-broker, from whose assignees 
 Captain Heseltine had purchased the property, 
 could not content herself with less) was belted 
 with a beautiful shrubbery, overlooking a view 
 of considerable beauty and extent ; and house, 
 offices, and gardens maintained that admirable 
 relative proportion only to be seen in new 
 places, springing full-grown and full-armed, like 
 the goddess of Wisdom, from the brain of the 
 projectors ; while ancient family seats, which 
 derive a wing from the wealthy marriage of one 
 occupant, and are probably robbed of a copse or 
 avenue by the prodigality of the next generation, 
 are sure to exhibit the inequalities of varying 
 fortunes.
 
 134 preferment; or, 
 
 The house, thanks to the extravagant vanity 
 of the stockbroker's wife, had been richly fur- 
 nished only a year before the Heseltines took 
 possession. All that the old gentleman might 
 have lacked taste and the young lady courage, 
 to effect, was done to their hand ; excepting in 
 the arrangements of her flower-garden, Geor- 
 giana had attempted nothing, yet all was as gay, 
 as elegant, and as enchanting as poor old 
 Hurley was square, cumbrous, dull, and unorna- 
 mental. Between the dingy brick-house of 
 four-stories, with a pyracanthus covering the 
 front, and an old-fashioned door adorned with a 
 brass-knockei adorning the centre, standing in a 
 fore court with posts and chains, and separated 
 from the fields behind by a haha, which Mrs. 
 Egerton had chosen for the roominess of its 
 nurseries, and number of its closets, — and the 
 Palladian-looking stone mansion, with its airy 
 portico, standing on a well-wooded knoll, which 
 Captain Heseltine had chosen because within a 
 morning's drive from Leadenhall Street and 
 the Geo. Soc, — there was as much difference 
 as between the successive husbands of the beau- 
 teous Majesty of Denmark. Even Mary Egerton,
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 135 
 
 though SO fond of Hurley, because it was home, 
 because three of the five doors visible in 
 the ugly wainscoted lobby of the first floor led 
 to rooms that still bore the names of John, 
 Julius, and Harry, though their shutters were 
 now rarely unclosed, could not help experi- 
 encing a feeling of relief on emerging from the 
 formal gravel-walk of the Hurley Garden into 
 the cheerful, well-planted grounds of Eastwick 
 Lodge. 
 
 " So Miss Spry is staying with you again ?" 
 exclaimed Georgiana to her friend, as soon as 
 they had fully discussed their progress in the 
 books they were reading, and the tapestry they 
 were stitching. 
 
 " Again ? — Aunt Rachel has not been with us 
 since Christmas.'' 
 
 " Indeed ! I thought it was later. But she 
 must have so much on her hands at home, that 
 I wonder she ever finds time to leave Helstone." 
 
 ** Now my brother has settled there he does 
 all in his power to release her." 
 
 " Yes, I can understand that," replied Geor- 
 giana, with a smile. 
 
 '' Poor woman ! her early days were so
 
 136 preferment; or, 
 
 devoted to duties of one kind or other, that at 
 her period of life it is high time she should enjoy 
 a little relaxation." 
 
 " I should have fancied her happier at Hel- 
 stone than anywhere else." 
 
 "So long as she has the society of Julius. 
 But my poor grandfather is no companion. All 
 he cares for is having the nevi^spapers read and 
 explained to him.'* 
 
 «' Were / his daughter, I should make it a 
 point of conscience to stay at home to read and 
 explain them. Consider how far more impor- 
 tant the calls Mr. Egerton has upon his time !" — 
 observed Miss Heseltine. 
 
 " Certainly; — the whole business of the parish, 
 which is considerable. But Julius has so much 
 consideration for poor aunt Rachel — " 
 
 " That he is delighted to procure her the 
 respite of a month's visit to Hurley," interrupted 
 Georgiana, with a smile. 
 
 " A month ! Is she going to spend a month 
 with us ?" cried Mary. " Mamma will be 50 
 pleased, she was afraid it would be only a week 
 or two." 
 
 " She alioays stays a month," said Georgiana,
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 137 
 
 pettishly ; *' comes for a week or two, but never 
 stays less than a month. I recollect last 
 Christmas — " 
 
 But Miss Heseltine's reminiscences were cut 
 short as she advanced towards the house by the 
 sight of their object, in proper person, standing 
 at the hall-door; and dreading that Miss Rachel 
 might force her way into the Captain's study, she 
 hurried the steps of her companion, and followed 
 her closely into the drawing-room. 
 
 ** Mercy me, my dear Miss Georgy, what an 
 atmosphere !" cried aunt Rachel, in a familiar 
 tone, untying her bonnet, and loosening her 
 white cravat, after returning the greetings of the 
 young hostess. *' The windows all wide open 
 at noonday in the month of June ! — I am quite 
 amazed, my dear, that a well-read and travelled 
 gentleman like your papa should sanction any 
 thing so preposterous ! — What is the practice, 
 pray, of the inhabitants of southern countries? 
 Why, to shut out all contact with the external 
 atmosphere — to close the windows, lest hot air 
 should penetrate into the rooms — and to close 
 the shutters, lest the sun should reach the
 
 138 preferment; or, 
 
 windows. I will just step in and speak to Cap- 
 tain Heseltine on the subject, for it is .most un- 
 wholesome for a person of your tender years to 
 be stifled in a room so hot as this." 
 
 '' My father is too busy to see you/' said 
 Georgiana, firmly, " and I am too much accus- 
 tomed to air to support a closer atmosphere.'* 
 
 " Never too late to amend a bad habit, my 
 dear ma'am,'^ — cried aunt Rachel. '* You are 
 positively losing all your fine bloom ; — isn't she, 
 Mary V 
 
 " Mr. Mitford and I were agreeing last night, 
 that we never saw Georgiana looking better," 
 replied Mary Egerton ; and aunt Rachel's 
 petulant rejoinder of " StuiF ! — Nonsense !" 
 was provoked not only by so bold a difference 
 of opinion, but by her niece's folly in serving 
 with the young heiress, by a quotation of his 
 praises, the cause of Philip Mitford, who was 
 supposed in the neighbourhood to be a pre- 
 tender to her smiles. 
 
 " Since you find the weather so oppressive, I 
 wonder you ventured to the Wells till the cool 
 of the evening," observed Georgiana.
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 139 
 
 "I had business there, ma'am/' said Miss 
 Rachel, snappishly. *' Mary, my dear, why 
 didn't you tell me that the Holwells had taken 
 Hammond's House?" 
 
 '' Who are the Holwells, and where is Ham- 
 mond's house, my dear Mary ?" inquired 
 Georgiana Heseltine, coming to her friend's 
 assistance. 
 
 " The large white house on Mount Ephraim. 
 I was not aware that it was taken." 
 
 '* For the whole season ! — and of all people in 
 the world, by the Holwells !" cried Miss Rachel. 
 
 " Do we know them ?" inquired Mary, 
 calmly. 
 
 " Know them ! what has that to do with it ? 
 Lord Hoi well is own brother to Lady Tiverton !" 
 
 " I did not know there was a Lord Holwell," 
 observed Georgiana, boldly hazarding the disgust 
 of her future mother-in-law. *' I remember we 
 had once a housekeeper, of that name, who was 
 famous for — " 
 
 *' A housekeeper /" ejaculated Miss Rachel, 
 with a look of indescribable compassion. " / 
 am alluding, ma'am, to John Adolphus Win-
 
 140 preferment; or, 
 
 tham, fourth Viscount Holwell, son of James, 
 third Viscount, by Lady Dorothea, second 
 daughter to the Marquis of Headingham," 
 — (vide Debrett, page 384.) 
 
 '' Of none of whom, as I said before, did I 
 ever happen to hear in my hfe/' observed 
 Georgiana, coolly. 
 
 " But you have a Peerage, ma'am, I suppose, 
 in the house ?" 
 
 " Perhaps so, (for there are two bookcases 
 yonder full of fine-bound books bought with 
 them of Mr. Doubledo's assignees,) but I never 
 opened one of them.'* 
 
 Miss Rachel shrugged her shoulders, and with 
 the distinct enunciation with which she was in 
 the habit of reciting such matters to the deaf old 
 doctor, resumed — " John Adolphus, fourth 
 Viscount, left, by the Lady Dorothea, his wife, 
 two sons and five daughters ; of whom the 
 Honourable Ismena, the eldest, intermarried 
 with Richard James, seventh Earl of Tiverton ; 
 Henrietta, the second — " 
 
 " In short," interrupted Georgiana, not de- 
 sirous of going through the pedigree, " the man
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 141 
 
 who has taken Hammond's for the summer is 
 brother to the fine lady sister-in-law of Mr. and 
 Mrs. Egerton ; whom, if he happen to resemble, 
 the society of Tunbridge will gain very little by 
 his visit." 
 
 " The Countess of Tiverton is a woman of 
 high birth and breeding, ma'am : some people 
 are fond of designating such qualities by the 
 name of fine ladyism," said Miss Rachel, 
 drawing up with indignation ; *' I trust my 
 niece has been better instructed ; and that she is 
 aware of the advantage likely to accrue to her 
 brothers from cultivating, with due respect, the 
 acquaintance of Lord and Lady Hoi well." 
 
 " Surely, my dear aunt, that will depend upon 
 themselves rather than upon us ?" 
 
 «* Such things depend upon anybody who 
 chooses to manage them properly. Not that I 
 can compliment your father and mother upon 
 much skill in such matters. Lord and Lady 
 Holwell have been at Hammond's this week 
 past, yet they had not the wit to find it 
 
 out." 
 
 •« We must do Mrs. Egerton the justice to
 
 142 preferment; or, 
 
 admit that she is neither a gossip nor a toady/' 
 said Georgiana, in a tone that called forth a 
 glance of remonstrance from Mary. 
 
 " She might have made the discovery of 
 their arrival in the same simple manner that it 
 occurred to me, ma'am. Coming round the 
 corner, by the Kentish Hotel, (adding up in my 
 mind the bill I had just paid at the haber- 
 dasher's,) I was nearly run over by a handsome 
 family coach, from the windows of which, as an 
 involuntary exclamation escaped me, half-a- 
 dozen heads were suddenly thrust out. I was 
 about to remonstrate with the coachman on his 
 carelessness, when, by the respectability of his 
 wig, I perceived that he belonged to no ordinary 
 family ; and you may guess what was my emo- 
 tion on discerning upon the rail a hand grenade 
 surmounted by a viscount's coronet, and recog- 
 nizing in a moment the armorial bearings of my 
 Lord Holwell, a near connexion of my own 
 brother-in-law, — (vide page 764 of the arms, in 
 Debrett.)" 
 
 ^ Did you stop and explain it to the coach- 
 man ?" inquired Georgiana, provokingly.
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 143 
 
 " No, ma'am, — I did not ; but I stopped and 
 said to myself, what a stroke of good fortune for 
 the family at Hurley House ! — Lord HolwelPs 
 visit to Tunbridge Wells will perhaps be the 
 making of my poor, dear Julius !" — 
 
 " After commencing with nearly running over 
 his aunt !" cried Georgiana, laughing. " But I 
 suppose il TfCy a que le premier pas qui 
 coute,* 
 
 "I do not see how either the first or last step 
 is likely to benefit my brothers," said Mary. 
 
 *' Not by introducing them to the notice of 
 their uncle through the medium of Lord Hoi- 
 well ?'^ cried aunt Rachel, pettishly. 
 
 " Their own merit seems to be getting them 
 on very well in the world without their uncle's 
 assistance,*' observed Georgiana Heseltine. 
 
 " And, after all, through what medium are 
 they to be introduced to the notice of Lord Hol- 
 well?" added Mary. 
 
 " Your father and mother will of course call 
 upon Lord Holwell.*' 
 
 '* I am sure I hope not," cried Mary. '' Our 
 living at Hurley House and his lodging at
 
 144 preferment; or, 
 
 Hammond's is surely no reason for intruding 
 upon his acquaintance ?" 
 
 ** On seeing their cards/' continued aunt 
 Rachel, taking ofF her spectacles and sedulously 
 wiping them as a pretext for not hearing her 
 niece's interruption, " his lordship will naturally 
 exclaim, *Who are this Mr. and Mrs. Egerton?' 
 Everybody hereabouts will answer ' The Honour- 
 able Mr. and Mrs. Egerton, of Hurley House, 
 and one of the most respectable families in the 
 environs of Tunbridge Wells.' « Relations, I 
 make no doubt, of my brother-in-law, Lord 
 Tiverton,' will infallibly be his lordship's 
 comment. Next day, the visit will be returned, 
 — an acquaintance will commence — an intimacy 
 ensue. If the Holwells have brought down 
 their cook, they will probably invite you to 
 dinner ; if not, (as I saw children in the carriage, 
 and your strawberry beds are just now in their 
 prime,) you can invite the family to a rural tea. 
 Thenceforward, you will all be on the happiest 
 footing at Tiverton Castle." 
 
 " All this is very plausibly settled, my dear 
 aunt," said Mary, trembling at the idea of the
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 145 
 
 advances Miss Rachel was about to suggest to 
 her father and mother, — ''but" — 
 
 " There is no hut in the case," angrily inter- 
 rupted aunt Rachel. 
 
 " But it is surely somewhat humiliating that 
 Mr. Julius Egerton's chance of preferment 
 should rest upon the arrival of Lord Hoi well's 
 cook and the ripeness of the Hurley straw- 
 berries," persisted Miss Heseltine, nothing 
 daunted by the dictatorial tone of her guest. 
 
 *' Trifles capable of being turned to high 
 account are never trifling, ma'am, in the estima- 
 tion of great minds," said Miss Rachel, swelling 
 with indignation. " My nephew is destined to 
 be an ornament to the country, provided we can 
 insure a foundation for the pedestal from which 
 he is to command attention." 
 
 '* I can scarcely fancy a strawberry-bed a 
 very steady foundation !" exclaimed the pro- 
 voking Georgiana. 
 
 '' Ah, my dear Sir ! — how truly gratified I 
 am in the opportunity of making my personal 
 inquiries after your health,*' cried Miss Rachel, 
 turning suddenly towards the door, through the 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 146 preferment; or, 
 
 narrowest possible aperture of which the 
 flowered chintz wrapper of Captain Hesehine 
 was perceptible. " Step in, step in — there are 
 none here but friends, who will shew every in- 
 dulgence towards your dishabille. Step in, my 
 dear Sir, step in !" — 
 
 And the body of the reluctant victim was ac- 
 cordingly dragged forwards, his mind being still 
 pinned down to his library table by the paper 
 weight of a ponderous quarto volume of Geogra- 
 phical Transactions. 
 
 *« Pray be seated, ma'am. — I fear you have 
 had a dusty walk?" said Captain Heseltine, 
 scarcely recognising Mary or her aunt, so ab- 
 sorbed were his thoughts in his morning's 
 studies. 
 
 " Dusty !" reiterated the astonished Miss 
 Rachel, who feared that the word might be in- 
 tended to convey a reflection upon her muddy 
 clogs. 
 
 " We are sadly in want of rain," persisted 
 the absent old gentleman, in a querulous tone. 
 " I was reading last night, in Lander's 
 Journal, that there was not the slif^htest ac-
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 147 
 
 cession of moisture between the 7th of April and 
 the 4th of September ! — Five months droughty 
 — all the brooks dried up, — the maize crops 
 lost, — the earth parched in a most terrific 
 degree, and even the camels on the point of 
 perishing !" 
 
 " Luckily we live in a more auspicious 
 climate," said Georgiana, too much accustomed 
 to her father's vagaries to blush for his seeming 
 absurdity. '* Even here, however, there were 
 great complaints till within the last few days. 
 The thunder storm of yesterday was said to be a 
 great benefit." 
 
 ** Benefit, my dear !" faltered her father, 
 looking surprised in his turn. 
 
 «^ So I heard, papa, from the gardeners," 
 replied Georgiana. 
 
 " The gardeners, my dear ! — what should they 
 know about it ? — It is a long established opinion 
 in the Himala, that a thunder storm in August 
 is the precursor of the jungle fever." 
 
 " The air appears very much cleared this 
 morning," persisted Miss Heseltine. 
 
 " You are mistaken, my love. — The air is full 
 
 h2
 
 148 prefehment; or, 
 
 of imperceptible animalculae, which are in- 
 variably put in motion by a storm. It was ob- 
 served by Humboldt in his first expedition." 
 
 *' My dear Captain Heseltine ! — Surely you 
 have ceased to pin your faith upon Humboldt?** — 
 cried Miss Rachel, drawing closer to her victim, 
 and fixing her amber spectacles upon his face, as 
 if for the purpose of fascination. *' Reflect how 
 completely he has been confuted by subsequent 
 travellers ! — Prince Maximilian of Wied, Ward, 
 Brand, Head, &c. &c. &c. &c., have successively 
 overthrown his theories and invalidated his 
 facts !"— 
 
 To the great annoyance of Miss Heseltine 
 and mortification of Mary, reply now produced 
 rejoinder, and rejoinder remonstrance ; and the 
 argument was not only prolonged for nearly an 
 hour between the bewildered Captain and his 
 guest, but ended in an invitation to dinner for 
 the following day, with a view to its renewal. 
 
 But Mary Egerton had other vexations in 
 store. For ten days following Miss Rachel's 
 unlucky discovery of Lord Holwell's arrival at 
 the Wells, she was kept in a constant state of
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 149 
 
 alarm by her aunt's officious overtures of civility 
 to every member of the family at Hammond's. 
 Her Sunday devotions were interrupted by aunt 
 Rachel's assiduous loan of psalm books to the 
 junior branches of the family, passing them over 
 from pew to pew, half across the chapel. The 
 good lady extended her attentions even to the 
 Danish coach dog, by stopping the well-wigged 
 family coachman, and entreating " that a muzzle 
 might be bought for that noble-looking animal ! 
 as, in consequence of the increase of hydro- 
 phobia in the county, poisoned meat was thrown 
 about by order of the magistrates." While 
 apparently attacking the outposts, Miss Rachel 
 was bent upon gradually carrying the war into 
 the heart of the family. 
 
 At length an opening presented itself, such as 
 many a pushing person has made available. 
 Lord and Lady Holwell were visiting Tun- 
 bridge for the benefit of a sickly child — like most 
 sickly children, its mother's idol; and by dint 
 of noticing the poor little creature as it was 
 drawn along the road to the Wells, and sug- 
 gesting old-fashioned remedies to the head
 
 150 preferment; or, 
 
 nurse, she achieved her grand object of being 
 personally thanked by the Viscountess; and 
 entering into particulars, in return, which served 
 to explain that " she was on a visit to her bro- 
 ther-in-law, Mr. Egerton, of Hurley House, the 
 brother-in-law of Lord Holwell's sister, Lady 
 Tiverton." 
 
 The explanation would have passed unnoticed 
 by Lady Holwell, who was a cold, dry valetudi- 
 narian, caring for no brothers-in-law of her own 
 or other people, and just then absorbed by the 
 sufferings of her infirm child ; but in the midst 
 of Miss Rachers chattering, Lord Holwell 
 chanced to make his appearance, who, being a 
 jovial fellow, and sick at soul of the dulness of 
 Tunbridge, was heartily glad of a discovery that 
 promised to enlarge his acquaintance and vary 
 the monotony of his invalidery. Nay, upon 
 Miss Rachel's earnest invitation, he accom- 
 panied her straightway back to Hurley House ; 
 and she had actually the triumph of doing the 
 honours of a real viscount to the astonished Mr. 
 and Mrs. Egerton, and the discomfited Mary. 
 
 There was nothing, however, in Lord Hoi-
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 151 
 
 well's deportment to create a suspicion that he 
 resented the unceremonious proceedings of the 
 gaunt lady in the nankeen pelisse. On the con- 
 trary, he was evidently delighted to find in a 
 near connexion of his family a good-humoured, 
 companionable man, like William Egerton ; and 
 congratulated himself so cordially on the pro- 
 vidential discovery, that the family was soon 
 reconciled to his intrusion. 
 
 After bespeaking the acquaintance of Mrs. 
 Egerton and Mary for his wife and daughters, 
 he won the heart of poor William by pottering 
 with him over his hay-fields, and persuading 
 him to saunter in return half-way back from 
 Hurley to Mount Ephraim. 
 
 " A very agreeable, gentlemanly man," was 
 Egerton's remark, as he re-entered the drawing- 
 room ; *' I dare say he will prove an acquisition 
 to us. My father and mother used to speak of 
 the Holwells as a united, amiable family. My 
 father and mother never could bear the present 
 Lady Tiverton, but they did justice to her bro- 
 ther." 
 
 " Yes, yes, a most united family ; that is ex-
 
 152 preferment; or, 
 
 actly the reputation the Holwells bear at the 
 Wells," cried Miss Rachel, in high spirits at 
 the accomplishment of her object. " Always 
 seen together, riding, driving, walking, visiting, 
 at church, and everywhere else. The first mo- 
 ment I caught sight of the family coach, crowded 
 with little heads, I saw the sort of people we 
 had to deal with ; and my presentiments seldom 
 deceive me. Mrs* Smith, the haberdasher, tells 
 me they ordered five straw bonnets of her, all 
 of a pattern, and the two elder Miss Flinthams 
 actually gave up gowns they had chosen at 
 Gingham's, because there was not enough in 
 the piece for the two younger. It is quite 
 refreshing, in these times, to see so united a 
 family ; the parents giving the example, and the 
 young people brought up to follow it !" 
 
 Mary Egerton heaved an involuntary sigh at 
 the idea of such happy family union. She had 
 always so longed for a sister ! — for though during 
 the last five years Georgy Heseltine and herself 
 had met daily, cherishing an affection as nearly 
 as possible akin to sisterhood, there were the 
 claims of their several families to keep them
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 153 
 
 apart on many occasions when they would fain 
 have been together. 
 
 "I have promised Lord Holwell, my dear, 
 that we will take a family dinner with him, with- 
 out ceremony, on Saturday," said William 
 Egerton, addressing his wife. " I trust, my love, 
 you will make no objection; her ladyship is 
 prevented from formal visiting by her attend- 
 ance on her sick child." 
 
 " On such grounds, my dear Livy, I think 
 you may fairly dispense with an introductory 
 visit," observed aunt Rachel, fancying that 
 Mrs. Egerton was waitinoj for her sanction. 
 " Who knows, my dear, in what all this may 
 end ! « Every road leads to Rome !' quoth the 
 proverb. You may find your way into Tiver- 
 ton Castle by way of Mount Ephraim after all." 
 
 h3
 
 154 preferment; or, 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A wise man, poor, 
 Is like a sacred book that's never read — 
 To himself he lives, and to all else is dead. 
 This age thinks better of a gilded fool 
 Than of a threadbare saint in wisdom's school. 
 
 Dekker. 
 
 It might have been supposed that Lord Hol- 
 well was not only aware of the circumstances 
 which rendered his acquaintance pecuHarly 
 desirable to the Hurley family ; but that he was 
 bent upon favouring their views. A week or 
 two after the family dinner party which served 
 to break the ice between all parties, an expedi- 
 tion to Battle Abbey having been proposed by 
 the Viscount to William Egerton, aunt Rachel 
 did not fail to interfere with pressing offers
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 155 
 
 of the hospitalities of Helstone Parsonage, which 
 was only five miles distant from the spot. 
 
 Lord Holwell, who, like most men settled with 
 their family at a watering place, grasped eagerly at 
 any hope of change, immediately agreed to take 
 an early dinner with the son of his new friends ; 
 and finally (after a formal invitation from Julius 
 per medium of aunt Rachel,) it was agreed that 
 they should dine and sleep at the Parsonage, and 
 return to Tunbridge on the following day. 
 
 Georgiana Heseltine, a little jealous perhaps 
 of the claims thus quickly established by the 
 people at Hammond's House upon the time and 
 attention of Mary and her mother, could not 
 forbear silently remarking that it was a strange 
 thing the head of so " united a family" as the 
 Holwells should, on so slight an inducement, 
 absent himself from a sick child and sorrowing 
 wife ; but Mary, who was becoming familiarized 
 with the oddities of her new friends, saw nothing 
 to wonder at in the matter. Admitted behind the 
 curtain of the " united family,'' dissonances had 
 become apparent, imperceptible to remote ob- 
 servers.
 
 156 preferment; or, 
 
 There could scarcely have been found a more 
 incongruous couple than Lord and Lady Holwell; 
 — resembling each other only in being good kind 
 of people, meaning no harm to their neighbours 
 or each other. It was surprising with how 
 much mutual good will they contrived to 
 render each other uncomfortable ; her ladyship, 
 (a feeble hypochondriac, dreading noise or busi- 
 ness, starting at straws, and never so happy as 
 when extended on a sofa in her dressing-room 
 within view of a comfortable medicine chest and 
 a shelf covered with strange-looking vials of all 
 sorts and conditions of nasliness from the 
 apothecary's,) had been adored into giving her 
 hand to a noisy Irish fox-hunter; to clear off the 
 mortgages on whose Connaught estates the 
 dowry of the Bristol heiress was extremely con- 
 venient. But although, from first to last, what 
 is called exceedingly attached to each other, 
 their union necessitated a constant succession of 
 sacrifices, rendering their lives a state of martyr- 
 dom. 
 
 Lord Holwell was bred in all the sporting 
 habits of a country gentleman ; Lady Holwell
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 157 
 
 liked nothing but the life of an invalid town 
 lady. When condemned to take a house in Lon- 
 don (for the benefit of approximation to the 
 College of Physicians and Apothecaries' Hall) 
 Lord Holwell preferred a centrical situation, — 
 Lady Holwell some no- thoroughfare out-of-the- 
 way corner, like Tenterden Street or Spring 
 Gardens. Lord Holwell insisted upon airy rooms, 
 — Lady Holwell on an apartment whence every 
 breath was excluded. Lord Holwell, of a san- 
 guine temperament, chose light clothing, light 
 wines, light food ; — Lady Holwell was always 
 covered with furs and cashmeres, and drank 
 nothing but Madeira. Lord Holwell was a 
 Tory, Lady Holwell a Whig; Lord Holwell 
 loved travelling, Lady Holwell staying at home ; 
 Lord Holwell new acquaintance. Lady Holwell 
 scarcely even old ; Lord Holwell indulged his 
 daughters. Lady Holwell spoiled her sons ; and, 
 to crown all. Lady Holwell delighted in the 
 humdrum creepmousy life of Tunbridge Wells, 
 while his lordship made no secret of the fact 
 that he should chalk out the three months spent 
 on Mount Ephraim as so much lost of his life ! —
 
 158 preferment; or, 
 
 The Misses and Masters Flintham, meanwhile, 
 shared amongst them, like other broods, the 
 qualities of sire and dam ; but each had some 
 distinguishing peculiarity, rendering the pre- 
 tension of being the most "united family" 
 in the world exceedingly problematical. Had 
 they not been in the main good-tempered, no 
 single roof could have contained their prodigious 
 discrepancies of taste. 
 
 Maria, the eldest, was of a philosophical turn 
 of mind, deeply read in Mrs. Marcet's Conversa- 
 tions, but without a word to say for herself. 
 Harriet, the second, was as devoted to the 
 pleasures of the imagination as her sister to the 
 cultivation of the positive sciences. Emma, the 
 third, was a classic ; — and little Matilda, the 
 youngest, a budding saint. Jane was a frantic 
 musician ; Emma, Maria, and Matilda, shud- 
 dered when they saw her approach the instru- 
 ment. Jane was passionately fond of dancing, 
 while Matilda thought it a sin, Maria a degrada- 
 tion, and Harriet a bore. 
 
 Nor were the sons of the united family much 
 more uniform in their fancies. John Flintham,
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 159 
 
 the eldest, was a proser of prose, a dull, learned 
 ass ; while James and Richard, the two younger 
 boys, were clever scapegraces. 
 
 To amalgamate with this heterogeneous group 
 was no easy matter for such straightforward 
 folks as the Egertons of Hurley House. During 
 the initiatory family dinner-party, Mary had for 
 a moment imagined that a mystification was 
 being played off at the expense of her parents' 
 rusticity. But on their return home, aunt 
 Rachel assured her that, in the Holwell's class of 
 life, it was no uncommon thing when the lady 
 ordered the windows to be closed for the lord to 
 order the doors to be opened; or for one sister to 
 call music trash, because the other termed field- 
 preaching a breach of the peace. 
 
 Aunt Rachel was in all cases fond of setting 
 herself up as an expounder of the manners of 
 the great. The defunct Mrs. Spry had, during 
 her ten years of governesshood in the family of 
 the Duke of Pelham, been occasionally per- 
 mitted to make tea for lords and ladies, and to 
 catch a glimpse through the door of the saloon, 
 of the Prince of Wales, Sheridan, and Charles
 
 160 preferment; or, 
 
 Fox ; and accustomed herself ever afterwards to 
 talk of them as her familiar associates ; till Miss 
 Rachel, who followed her mother's footsteps in 
 every particular, came to believe that it was she. 
 who had witnessed the incidents recorded in her 
 mother's legendary anecdotes. She had been 
 detected by her nephews in commencing a 
 story, " At the time I lived so much with the 
 Prince," (whom she never saw in her life,) 
 precisely in the dry, consequential tone of the 
 
 ex-governess. 
 
 Not all her notes explanatory, however, 
 availed to convince Mary Egerton that the Hol- 
 wells and their daughters were not eccentric 
 people, and it was always a relief to her to get 
 back from Hammond's to the humdrum tran- 
 quillity of Hurley, or the cheerful conversation 
 of Georgiana Heseltine. 
 
 '' Do you know, I am quite fidgetty at the 
 idea of this visit of Lord Holwell to Helstone," 
 said she to her young friend, on the day of 
 her father's and the Viscount's departure for 
 Battle Abbey. " Although aunt Rachel has 
 returned home these two days to prepare for
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 161 
 
 them, I fear they will put Julius sadly out of 
 his way." 
 
 " Is that all ? It does young men good to be 
 put out of their way ! Your brother is scarcely 
 old enough to pretend to the privileges of an 
 old bachelor.'' 
 
 «' Lord Holwell will find things at the par- 
 sonage so different from all he is accustomed to !" 
 
 «' Then why does he go ? He sleeps there for 
 his own convenience." 
 
 " Julius sent the invitation at my father's ex- 
 press desire and assurance that it had been 
 already made in my grandfather's name by aunt 
 Rachel." 
 
 " I own I was rather surprised to hear of his 
 civility ; for between ourselves, my dear Mary, 
 your brother passes in the neighbourhood of 
 Helstone for a sort of hermit. He refuses 
 all invitations, pays no visits, and devotes 
 his days to village-visiting, and his nights to 
 study. The gloss of his japan, as Philip Mitford 
 says, is still strong upon him." 
 
 " May it never be worn off," said Mary, 
 gravely.
 
 162 preferment; or, 
 
 *' You do not surely wish him to become an 
 enthusiast ?" — 
 
 " In his profession, better be an enthusiast 
 than cold or lukewarm." 
 
 ^' Better be a reasonable being than anything 
 else," persisted Georgiana. '* I hate to hear of 
 any friend of mine pretending to extraordinary 
 virtues. Mr. Egerton might have returned the 
 visit of Sir Thomas Smyth, or even have dined 
 at Battle Abbey, without prejudice to his zeal 
 for converting the old women of his parish. For 
 my part, I am apt to reverse the popular pro- 
 verb, and say, ' The greater the saint the greater 
 the sinner.' " 
 
 " No fear that Julius will ever accredit 
 your theory," cried Mary. " Your prejudice 
 in favour of my eldest brother is too apt to blind 
 you to his merits. Julius may not be so amusing 
 as John. He cannot sing — he cannot act — he 
 cannot make the agreeable ; — but he has more 
 valuable qualities than any of us, and will live 
 to be an honour to the family." 
 
 The visit thus critically discussed between the 
 two young ladies, was in fact a source of sad
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 163 
 
 annoyance to Julius. Aunt Rachel's departure 
 to Hurley had afforded a pledge for at least a 
 month's peace and independence at home; and 
 now, it was to be broken in upon by the in- 
 trusion of a stranger, who was to be made much 
 of merely because he was a lord and connected 
 by marriage with a most ungracious uncle ! 
 Julius Egerton had no patience to dwell upon 
 his disappointment ; and after ordering the state 
 bedroom of the parsonage to be got ready, (the 
 very bedroom in which his grandfather the Earl 
 had slept when he came down to instal his two 
 sons in pupilage at Helstone,) he turned anew 
 to his Greek Testament for consolation, and 
 lost the recollection of his miseries. 
 
 Julius Egerton had now been more than a 
 year in orders, pursuing his vocation at Hel- 
 stone with all the ardour of a novice. Yet a 
 blessing seemed to be upon his labours. Stub- 
 born hearts were softened by the eloquence and 
 unction of his preaching, — miserable homes re- 
 deemed from wretchedness by the influence of 
 his benevolence. — His manner was so persuasive, 
 his countenance so noble, his figure so com-
 
 164 preferment; or, 
 
 manding, that '' Truths divine came mended 
 from his tongue." The intelligence of a strong 
 mind and the artlessness of a virtuous heart, 
 gave peculiar force to his exposition of the doc- 
 trines of the established church. 
 
 Although the panegyrics of such a proneuse as 
 Rachel Spry were a serious disadvantage, the 
 fame of the *' St. John of Helstone" was spreading 
 widely in the county. Every neighbourhood 
 has its great house ; and though the great house 
 called Helstone Park was far from a distin- 
 guished one, yet wherever an establishment of a 
 certain magnitude is set up, eminent persons 
 will be found to eat venison off its service of 
 plate, as if to verify the proverb, that fools make 
 feasts, and wise men eat them. Among the 
 guests assembled by Sir Thomas and Lady 
 Smyth, more than one man of renown had sat 
 in their gorgeous pew in the chancel of Helstone 
 Church, (conceded by the toadyism of Dr. 
 Spry,) and done justice to the talents of the 
 officiating minister. But when, at length, the 
 mighty Silas Vivian, the executioner of so many 
 literary and professional reputations, came to
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 165 
 
 be numbered among their guests, and was cross- 
 examined in his opinions of the young St. John, 
 he was heard, after expressing the highest com- 
 pliments, to mutter that Mr. Egerton appeared 
 to be incited by some stirring consciousness or 
 reminiscence, — that he preached hke a man 
 under unnatural excitement. 
 
 " There certainly is something rather odd 
 about him/' replied Lady Smyth. " We have 
 thought it right to notice Mr. Egerton on many 
 occasions since we settled at Helstone ; nay, 
 Sir Thomas, feeling that some attention was 
 due from a man of his landed property in the 
 county to a clergyman of the established 
 church, actually went so far as to call upon 
 him and invite him to dinner. But the in- 
 vitation was declined, on the plea that, in addi- 
 tion to his professional duties, he was obliged 
 to devote his time to his grandfather, Dr. 
 Spry, — a sort of superannuated schoolmaster, 
 beneficed by the parents of one of his pupils. 
 We considered this, at the time, far from res- 
 pectful ; but, as you say, the young man appears 
 to be a little cracked." ^
 
 166 preferment; or, 
 
 '« I said nothing of the kind, Madam, that I 
 remember," interposed Mr. Vivian. " I merely 
 observed that Mr. Egerton appeared to be acting 
 under some peculiar bent or impulse. 
 
 " The impulse of being vastly uncivil !" 
 cried Lady Smyth, whose sagacity was of the 
 smallest. " I recollect one day meeting him on 
 the road, as we were riding with a large party 
 of persons of fashion, (Sir John and Lady 
 Greenfinch, and our relations, Lord and Lady 
 Macnamara,) and when Sir Thomas (instead 
 of passing him by, as it would have been very 
 easy to do,) stopped his horse and asked him 
 why we saw so little of him at the park, in the 
 most affable manner, the young gentleman made 
 some sort of short answer, very far from becoming 
 the curate of Dr. Spry." 
 
 ''Your ladyship has certainly every right to 
 resent such ingratitude," replied Vivian, with a 
 sneer, — diverted at the idea of the rebuff given 
 to the impertinent patronage of the Smyths, and 
 confirmed in his opinion that the eloquence 
 of the curate arose from no ordinary source of 
 inspiration.
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 167 
 
 The nice observer was not deceived. Young 
 Egerton's was a mind at war within itself. In 
 the utmost of its strength there was weakness, as 
 in the strength of all mortal natures ; and it was 
 against an overweening consciousness of this that 
 the aspirant after perfection struggled. He knew 
 himself vain, — he knew himself ambitious, — he 
 knew himself even interested; — for how can those 
 remain tZesinterested who cherish a lawless covet- 
 ing of the vanities of the world ? His visits to 
 Tiverton Castle had inspired secret disgust 
 towards the homeliness of his father's house. 
 Even as a boy, the rude simplicity of Hurley 
 had been distasteful ; and when his father's plan 
 for his entering the church, with a promise of 
 preferment from the Duke of Pelham and a 
 hope of patronage from Lord Tiverton, was dis- 
 closed to him, Julius had accepted the proposi- 
 tion on the mere temptation of worldly advance- 
 ment. He was aware that his inclinations 
 pointed towards other modes of life ; — but he 
 shuddered at the idea of an attorney's office, — 
 the alternative suggested by his father. 
 
 At college, his distinctions of mind and
 
 168 preferment; or, 
 
 manners had introduced Julius Egerton to the 
 society of his superiors in rank and fortune, by 
 whose influence his craving after greatness was 
 fostered. Insensibly, his habits became tinged 
 with extravagance; and though the limited allow- 
 ance his father was able to afford him placed some 
 check upon his follies, the son of the '* Honour- 
 able Mr. Egerton " found little difficulty in 
 obtaining credit; till on quitting the Uni- 
 versity, Julius found himself encumbered with 
 debts, the trifling amount of which would have 
 formed a famous jest for Lord Storby or any 
 other of his fashionable associates ; but which to 
 poor Julius, the second son of Hurley House, 
 sounded like a decree of bankruptcy. He re- 
 coiled from the idea of encumbering the narrow 
 income of his parents. Reared in frugal self- 
 denial, he held in the utmost respect the honest 
 prudence of his family ; and to brave his father's 
 mortification by confessing into what ex- 
 cesses he had allowed himself to be betrayed 
 was an effort beyond his courage. Instead of 
 relieving the difficulties of Mr. and Mrs. Eger- 
 ton, who had relinquished many of their little
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 169 
 
 comforts to allow him a college education, he 
 was about to encroach upon the rights of his 
 brother and sister, and make it clear that he, — 
 Julius, — who had been always quoted as the 
 steadiest of Mr. Egerton's sons, was the first to 
 inconvenience his family. 
 
 Such was the motive which had driven Julius 
 into the church. The young men with whom 
 he associated at Trinity were chiefly noble- 
 men's sons, about to launch into a life of plea- 
 sure, or to rush into a life of distinction by 
 filling some family seat in parliament ; and 
 prompted by their flatteries, persuasions, and 
 promises of assistance, young Egerton at one 
 moment resolved to declare his aversion to 
 the profession selected for him, and his incom- 
 petency for its duties. But, lo ! just as the 
 period approached for taking his degree, when 
 on the point of appealing to his father's indul- 
 gence, his creditors became so clamorous that it 
 was impossible to postpone further the settle- 
 ment of their claims. To acquaint his worthy 
 parents at the same moment of his prodigality, 
 and his determination to renounce the provision 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 170 preferment; or, 
 
 awaiting him, was impossible. Aunt Rachel, 
 therefore, became his confidante and banker, 
 with a mutual agreement that his misdoings 
 should be kept secret from his family, and the 
 sum of three hundred pounds advanced, gra- 
 dually repaid to his grandfather's strong-box 
 when he should be salaried as curate of Helstone. 
 All that remained was to read assiduously for 
 his degree ; in order that he might be able to 
 preach, marry, christen, and bury, with be- 
 coming zeal, for the reimbursement of his 
 unconscious creditor. 
 
 Like many other people, in short, Julius was 
 made to atone by the commission of a thousand 
 meannesses for having for a moment pretended 
 to indulgences lawfully beyond his reach. But 
 this was wormwood to his generous spirit. The 
 more he reflected on the sacred engagements 
 into the outrage of which he was hurried by his 
 bitterly repented transgressions, the more he 
 loathed and despised the dissimulation into 
 which he had betrayed himself. 
 
 " All self-sacrifices for the lucre of gain are 
 vile," mused Julius, while engaged in the solemn
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 171 
 
 Studies indispensable to the accomplishment of 
 his object. " How often have I exclaimed 
 against fellows for marrying ugly heiresses or 
 rich widows, or paying their court to opulent 
 old gentlemen on the look-out for an heir. But 
 what was their baseness compared with mine ! 
 To sell my opinions, my conscience, my self- 
 respect, — to make a bargain of my piety, — how 
 base, — how despicable !" 
 
 Nevertheless, he felt that it must be done : 
 that he had incurred obligations as sacred as the 
 maintenance of his own moral integrity ; and 
 after many unsuspected struggles and much 
 unrevealed anguish, Julius became curate of 
 Helstone and a miserable man. 
 
 For he had taken up his cross in earnest. 
 From the moment of pledging his word to 
 the serviceable woman who had preserved her 
 favourite nephew from the reprobation of his 
 family, Julius renounced the society of his gay 
 companions, the allurements of elegant litera- 
 ture, and laboured without ceasing to subdue 
 his vainglorious aspirations. Since his fate was 
 sealed, he determined to become the most ex- 
 
 I 2
 
 172 preferment; or, 
 
 emplary of parish priests, (whatever he did must 
 always be in the superlative,) and devote himself 
 to the service of the altar, as if to atone by 
 excess of zeal for the fault he had committed in 
 accepting it as an hireling. 
 
 By much effort, he succeeded in detaching his 
 thoughts from the frivolities of life. Aware that 
 abstinence is easier than temperance, he re- 
 nounced, on pretext of the old rector's infirmi- 
 ties, all intercourse with society. Even with 
 the family at Hurley he refrained from inti- 
 mate communication. He felt the insufficiency of 
 his vocation ; he felt the difficulty of devoting 
 his thouo'hts to thinors eternal with the exclu- 
 siveness which the conscientious fervour of 
 youth pointed out as the one thing needful. But 
 by degrees, this unnatural coercion of a com- 
 prehensive mind recoiled upon itself. He 
 became an enthusiast. He preached (as Mr. 
 Vivian described him) as if under the influence of 
 unnatural excitement ; and the consequence was 
 that he begat enthusiasm, and became the origin 
 of unnatural excitement in others, the apostle of 
 the poor, the idol of all. He had found it
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 173 
 
 necessary to work himself np to so high a pitch 
 of sanctification, — to attempt so much in order to 
 achieve a Httle, — that it was no wonder poor Wil- 
 liam E^erton was beffinninff to stand a little in 
 awe of the wonderful chick which had been 
 fledged under his paternal wing. He even felt 
 it necessary to prepare Lord Holwell's mind for 
 the seriousness of the youthful host who was 
 about to do the honours of Helstone Parsonage. 
 
 " What the deuce ! — you don't mean that a 
 son of yours and a nephew of Tiverton's has 
 turned methodist ?" — cried Lord Holwell, in- 
 stantly conjuring up the idea of a field-preacher 
 with lanky locks and a rusty suit of solemn 
 black. 
 
 " A methodist ? — God forbid V exclaimed 
 Egerton, who from his alliance with the esta- 
 blished church had imbibed a becominijj fervour 
 of orthodoxy. " I never heard the slightest ob» 
 jection raised against the doctrines of my son ; 
 on the contrary, his visitation sermon last Easter 
 was pronounced by the bishop to be the finest 
 ever heard in his diocese. I only meant that 
 Julius, being grave beyond his years, might per- 
 haps" —
 
 174 preferment; or, 
 
 " Pho, pho, pho ! — When young men affect 
 gravity beyond their years, it is the fault of 
 those they live amongst. This poor lad of 
 yours, cooped up with a tabby of an aunt and a 
 grandfather in his dotage, don't know what's 
 what. We'll have a jollification to-night, and 
 rouse the youngster up.'' 
 
 Egerton shook his head, and looked nervous. 
 
 " Fathers and mothers are the last people in 
 the world to manage such matters," persisted 
 Lord Holwell. " 'Pon my life, the saints are 
 gaining ground so cursedly in England, that 
 one is afraid of finding them spreading their 
 lines on ground of one's own." 
 
 And Lord Holwell, whose notions of a meri- 
 torious country clergyman were chiefly founded 
 upon the example of his cousin, Parson Flint- 
 ham, his nearest neighbour on his Irish estates 
 and one of the j oiliest dogs in the county, 
 launched forth into a diatribe against dissenters 
 and the righteous over-much, which, though it 
 did not even remotely reach the case of Julius 
 Egerton, his father earnestly trusted might not 
 be renewed in his presence. He foresaw the 
 rebuke with which the high-minded young man
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 175 
 
 would be likely to fling back the scorn of the 
 scorner. 
 
 His alarm, however, was premature. Lord 
 Holwell had not been a quarter of an hour in 
 company with the curate of Helstone, before he 
 felt that it would be as impossible to bandy 
 words with him on professional subjects, as to 
 dispute with the king on his prerogative. 
 Young as he was, the grave good breeding of 
 Julius's manners inspired respect; and so far 
 from justifying Lord Holweirs expectations 
 that he would I'ender his visit disagreeable by 
 sanctimoniousness, he seemed to take pleasure 
 in doing, as a man of the world, the honours of 
 the little old-fashioned Parsonage, which the 
 moderateness of the living had never permitted 
 the incumbents to ruin by improvement. 
 
 The trimly neatness of the place was a re- 
 freshing sight to the eyes of an habitual resident 
 in Ireland. The old brickwork porch, covered 
 with passion flowers and jessamine, under whose 
 leafy shade George Herbert might have con- 
 cocted his Priest of the Temple, was in ex- 
 quisite keeping with the holy and tranquil spot.
 
 176 preferment; or. 
 
 Even aunt Rachel, when seated at the head of 
 a well-spread board, was very different from the 
 prating, gossiping Miss Spry who had intruded 
 into Hammond's House ; and the old Doctor, to 
 whom the idea of having a lord in the house 
 acted as a restorative, managed to say a few 
 intelligible words of civility before he was 
 wheeled off to bed. 
 
 Instead of spending the evening in either 
 controversy or raillery, (according to his custom 
 with Parson Flintham,) Lord Hoi well found 
 himself strongly interested in Julius's explana- 
 tions of the various points of scenery he had 
 that morning visited. Collections of engravings 
 and historical works connected with the anti- 
 quities of Sussex were brought from the library 
 for his entertainment; and the usual country- 
 gentleman topics of agriculture, poor-laws, and 
 parochial administration, were good-humouredly 
 discussed. 
 
 " I spent a very pleasant day last week with 
 your nephew, young Egerton, at his Parsonage," 
 formed a paragraph in Lord Holwell's next 
 letter to his brother-in-law at Tiverton Castle.
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 177 
 
 "He is a monstrous fine young fellow; neither 
 a pedant nor a methodist, though I find he dis- 
 tinguished himself at college, and is made a 
 sort of prophet in the neighbourhood. I should 
 be vexed that either Peter or Robert (whom I 
 begged you to remember when you had a living 
 to give away) stood in his light. As I informed 
 you in my last, your brother and his family are 
 vastly attentive to us all ; I am only vexed that 
 you did not favour me with an introduction to 
 them when I mentioned that Halford had ordered 
 us to Tunbridge Wells." 
 
 1 3
 
 178 preferment; or. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Some men are possessed of faculties that are serviceable 
 to others, but useless to themselves ; like the sun-dial on 
 the front of a house, to inform the neighbours and passen- 
 gers of the hour, but not the owner within. — Swift. 
 
 The notice bestowed by Lord Tiverton upon 
 his brother-in-law's letter consisted in handing 
 it across the breakfast- table to the Countess, 
 who marked her contempt by a pitying shrug 
 of the shoulders. Since her accession of import- 
 ance in the fashionable world, Lady Tiverton 
 had, as far as possible, dropped the acquaintance 
 of her L'ish relations. Even her brother. Lord 
 Holwell, was at times felt to be an incumbrance. 
 There was a vulgar domesticity about him, a 
 family-coach sort of way of going on, which
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 179 
 
 often made him inconvenient and ridiculous. 
 She had no reliance upon his judgment. At a 
 place like Tunbridge Wells he was sure to pick 
 up some tiger or other. "No one but Holwell, 
 however, would have shewn so little tact as to 
 volunteer an acquaintance with such people as 
 the Sprys; and it was quite absurd to fancy 
 that because he found it convenient to sleep in a 
 parsonage-house instead of an inn, Lord Tiver- 
 ton's hands were to be tied by promises of a 
 living to his host." 
 
 The Earl, as was his wont, instantly coincided 
 in her ladyship's view of the case. He had, in 
 fact, no time to disagree with her. Between 
 parliamentary business and private business, 
 every hour of his day was bespoken. One-half 
 his life having been spent in getting into difficul- 
 ties, the other half was to be spent in getting 
 out of them. He had always three or four law- 
 suits going on, and six or eight lawyers to 
 manage them ; and as Lady Tiverton chose that 
 they should live to the full extent of their thirty 
 thousand a-year, though nearly half their income 
 was dissipated, nothing short of a Chancellor of
 
 180 preferment; or, 
 
 the Exchequer, with a paper mint at his com- 
 mand, could possibly have cleared off their em- 
 barrassments. 
 
 Could the kind-hearted William Egerton 
 have beheld his brother, now that he had served 
 a seven years' apprenticeship to the craft of 
 aristocratic life, he would have grieved to ob- 
 serve that the cheeks he had noticed as lank and 
 yellow were ten times more jaundiced than on 
 his accession to rank and fortune. But in his 
 own family, no one cared for his looks. Except 
 when he was wanted to draw a cheque on the 
 banker. Lady Tiverton seldom took the trouble 
 of addressing a civil word to him ; and as to his 
 sons and daughters, they saw so little of him, 
 except in company, that they held themselves 
 excused from more than the ceremonial of filial 
 respect. 
 
 Lord Egerton, indeed, had his independent 
 domicile, and avoided, as far as possible, all 
 intercourse with his family ; not from conscious- 
 ness of their worthlessness, or love of indepen- 
 dence, but because it was the habit of the set to 
 which he devoted himself. Beyond the appear-
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. ISl 
 
 ance of things Lord Egerton cared for nothing. 
 His narrow mind was so absorbed in the ambi- 
 tion of passing for the most correctly fashion- 
 able young man about town that he did not 
 permit himself to indulge in a single natural 
 taste. His life was a life of self-denial. He 
 would have died of hunger and thirst rather . 
 than eat or drink at some spot under the ban of 
 the empire of fashion ; and condemned himself 
 to a thousand pursuits extremely distasteful to 
 him, because they were those of his gay asso- 
 ciates. He was a timid, bad rider, yet had eight 
 hunters at Melton ; he detested music, yet 
 had his stall at the opera; he disliked crossing 
 the sea, yet spent a fortnight every winter at 
 Paris; he abhorred cards, yet at the Travel- 
 lers' never passed an evening without leaving 
 a certain sum behind him at the whist- table. 
 
 " Egerton does a vast deal too much," was 
 the remark of his uncle Adolphus, one day, to 
 his favourite nephew. "A thousand things 
 highly becoming in you or I are infra dig, in an 
 eldest son. There is no occasion for Efjerton 
 to distinguish himself by playing fine. People
 
 182 preferment; or, 
 
 will be always ready enough to make much of 
 him, whether in or out of fashion. Nothing 
 provokes me more than to see a man in his 
 position affecting airs that are indispensable to 
 a younger brother ; unless, indeed, to hear a 
 fellow talking the same claptrap in the House 
 of Lords he would in the Commons." 
 
 '' I don't perceive that Egerton does anything 
 different from the rest of the world," replied 
 Dick, taking his cigar from his mouth. 
 
 " The rest of the world, my dear fellow, is a 
 generality that means nothing. The world is 
 not such a handful as to be spoken of en masse. 
 From the time of the serpent that tempted Eve 
 everything has had a head and a tail, and gets 
 on by moving them in contrary directions. If 
 you were not to winter in Leicestershire, or if / 
 were not to be seen at whist in the course of the 
 evening, people would ask what was become of 
 us, and fancy we were hard up. But Egerton 
 ought to be able to play or hunt, or let it alone, 
 according to his whim and fancy." 
 
 '* Not now, — his day for that is over," said 
 Dick, with a significant nod. " Privileges
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 183 
 
 become obsolete, you know, for want of enforce- 
 ment; and the world having once found out 
 that Egerton stands in awe of it, — that he is not 
 master of himself, — that he is the slave of 
 opinion, — a slave he must remain. Not a fellow 
 in the club but knows he can annoy Egerton to 
 death by sneering at his new carriage, or inquir- 
 ing, with a significant smile, the name of his tailor. 
 As to that brute, Sir Gordon Hilfield, whom I 
 have seen drive him out of his senses by asking 
 an explanation of his good things and listening 
 with an incredulous look to his anecdotes, I call 
 him Egerton's damper.'* 
 
 '' Nobody's fault but his own ! — What busi- ^ 
 ness has he to say good things, or relate anec- 
 dotes? — It is going beyond his line ; and Hilfield, 
 who is nobody, (a Guelphic knight, or some 
 horror of that kind,) is justified in resenting 
 Egerton's encroachments upon his business. It 
 is his duty to be agreeable ; and of course when 
 the heir of a rich peer interferes with Sir 
 Gordon's vocation, he is asked to the dinners 
 and country-houses in preference to a man who 
 has nothing else to recommend him."
 
 184 preferment; or, 
 
 '* You seem determined to reduce poor Eger- 
 ton to a cipher !" cried Dick, amused by Adol- 
 phus Egerton's parliamentary manner of dis- 
 cussing trifles light as air. I suspect it was by 
 your advice he gave up his seat to me." 
 
 '' Of course it was. Sore as I was upon the 
 subject, I made it a point of conscience to sug- 
 gest to him the line of conduct that Tiverton 
 ought to have pursued in former days towards 
 me. Family boroughs were intended for the 
 protection of younger brothers. If a man be 
 not able to provide suitably for his second son, 
 he ought at least to secure him from the conse- 
 quences of the debts which he has no choice 
 but to contract." 
 
 " Certainly, certainly," replied Dick. But, 
 trust me, it was anything but a point of con- 
 science that made Egerton give up parlia- 
 ment. The atmosphere of the old House was 
 fatal to a fellow's complexion ; and as my 
 father was working his way to the marquisate 
 he made difficulties about slack attendance. So 
 when Egerton found that it was a place of all- 
 work, and that he should be quizzed to death by
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 185 
 
 Hilfield or others if he consented to drudge, he 
 proposed me to my father, and my father to the 
 corporation, and there was an end of the business/' 
 
 " Not quite an end, for Vm told you make a 
 capital member," observed Adolphus, smiling 
 upon his adopted heir. " Only that you would find 
 it a deuce of a bore, I should be almost inclined 
 to advise you to stick to politics. Politics are 
 looking up, my dear fellow. During the war, they 
 were at the devil of a discount. Just remember 
 what fellows got on and made a noise ! — But 
 now that government is the only balloon for a 
 man to rise in, places get dear and the company 
 select. There are two or three really gentlemanly 
 men in the present ministry." 
 
 '^ I should not be satisfied with moderate 
 success," observed Dick, filliping the ashes of 
 his cigar from his waistcoat. " It is true that 
 on the few occasions I have found it necessary 
 to rise, I have carried away the house ; which, 
 considering that not one of the author mem- 
 bers but has proved a failure, I am a little 
 proud of. But what is the worth of a speech 
 or two in a political hfe ? — To distinguish
 
 186 preferment; or, 
 
 oneself as a public man, one must do nothing 
 else; and, thank God, I still find attractions 
 elsewhere that are worth all the cheers of the 
 ministerial or opposition benches." 
 
 " You talk like a blockhead, my dear Dick," 
 replied Adolphus, in his usual imperturbable 
 tone. " The only good thing of public life is, 
 that, like certain pieces of preferment, it can be 
 held with something better." 
 
 " Ay, ay, the public life of a middle-aged 
 man, whose place gives him plenty of patronage 
 and whose pleasures plenty of pretenders to it. 
 But the politician, like the soldier, must work 
 his way up ; and I don't care to work." 
 
 '' Who does ? — But make yourself easy. A 
 single brilliant speech on a popular question 
 will do your business. After that, keep as still 
 as death for a session or two; then, make a 
 wavering speech, as if exceedingly perplexed 
 in your conscience whether or not to oppose the 
 measures of government; and, take my word for 
 it, you will have a private visit from the mi- 
 nister's private secretary before twenty-four 
 hours are over your head \" —
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 187 
 
 " Likely enough ; but that system is thorough- 
 blown ; and were I to take a part in public 
 life, I should prefer one which might yield me 
 some little credit. I am not yet in so desperate 
 a plight as to make it necessary for me to dirty 
 my fingers." 
 
 *' The deuce you are not ! — why, supposing 
 Tiverton dies to-morrow, what becomes of you ? 
 Embarrassed as he is, you don't imagine he 
 has laid anything by for you or the girls ?" — 
 
 " But z^'/iy suppose he will die to-morrow? 
 He has as good a life as any one I know. And 
 even were some accident to carry off the 
 governor, be assured, Egerton would act other- 
 wise towards me than he does now. It is de 
 mammis ton for two brothers about town to hang 
 upon each other, or live in the same set ; but 
 it looks well for an Earl of Tiverton living 
 at Tiverton Castle to be on the best terms with 
 his younger brother." 
 
 " I suspect he would be on all the better 
 terms with him for seeing him under-secretary, 
 or a junior lord,'' observed Adolphus, with a 
 knowing nod.
 
 188 preferment; or, 
 
 " No doubt — so would you. But, between 
 ourselves, my dear Adolphus, your notions of 
 getting on in political life are rococo. Let me 
 alone. I neither expose my game nor publish 
 my theory. Enough if I succeed !" 
 
 " Enough, indeed ! — You talk exactly in the 
 confident tone that Lady Tiverton used about 
 bringing out Ismena, — and look at the result ! 
 — Lady Tiverton fancied that though other 
 manoeuvring mammas failed in fastening their 
 hooks, her quack system must be infallible. She 
 quarrelled with all her friends who had daughters 
 to marry, for fear they should analyse her nos- 
 trum; and was as mysterious even with me, as 
 if there were a secret to keep. God bless the 
 woman ! — not one of her strataojems but was 
 as familiar at the clubs as the incidents (war- 
 ranted new) of every fresh melo-drama brought 
 by young authors to the manager of a theatre, 
 with — ' This scene. Sir, would be most effective 
 on the stage.' — ' It was hissed. Sir,' replies the 
 manager, ' in the Freebooter of the Tyrol.' — 
 ' But the catastrophe, Sir, the catastrophe !' — 
 ' Was damned two years ago in the Lin of Gua-
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 189 
 
 denzell.' But the young gentleman is incredu- 
 lous, and chooses his production to be damned 
 over again. — So did Lady Tiverton !" — 
 
 " It does seem strange/' observed Dick, be- 
 traying no emotion at these impertinent stric- 
 tures on his mother, *' that a beautiful girl 
 like Ismena should be out two seasons without 
 one decided proposal." 
 
 '' Not at all. I could have sworn it from the 
 first," replied Adolphus. '* Lady Tiverton's 
 line of conduct was as erroneous as poor 
 Egerton's. She had made up her plans, 
 before my brother came to his fortune, and was 
 stupid enough to do for the daughter of the 
 Countess of Tiverton all she had intended for 
 the poor daughter of an embarrassed eldest son. 
 With such a house and establishment as she 
 now enjoys, she ought to have kept quite still; 
 have suffered Ismena to have gone out as little 
 as possible, and have let matters manage them- 
 selves. All the first men in town dine in St. 
 James's Square. One of them would have fallen 
 desperately in love with the beautiful Lady 
 Ismena Egerton, of whom he had never heard
 
 190 preferment; or, 
 
 till he saw her at her father's table ; and nothing- 
 further would have been necessary than to buy 
 the special licence and sign the settlements." 
 
 *« Instead of which," cried Dick, '« Lady 
 Ismena Egerton has been puffed like one of 
 Rowland's cosmetics, till people are sick of her 
 very name! — Pictures in the Exhibition,— prints 
 in the annuals, — verses in the papers, — addresses 
 in albums ! — Then such loads of finery from 
 Paris ; — as if it signified whether the handsomest 
 girl in London had her bonnets made by Her- 
 bault or by some Mrs. Smith ! Trinkets, lace, 
 flowers, all the trappings of a superannuated 
 coquette, have been heaped upon that girl." 
 
 " Poor Ismena has been ill-used," — added 
 Adolphus, "made ridiculous, and made un- 
 happy. — It is not her fault that her mother has 
 chosen to hunt up the Duke of Ulster, and fol- 
 low him from Rome to Paris, from Paris to 
 London, from London to Ireland, like Goddard 
 the thief- taker after some public defaulter." 
 
 " I told her from the first that she had no 
 chance, — Ulster being engaged to one of his 
 cousins from the time he was at Eton. She
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 191 
 
 wanted me to quarrel with Ulster, — but I don't 
 see on what grounds. He frequented the house 
 at Rome, because she made it pleasant with balls 
 and private theatricals; but the moment he 
 found her ladyship's intentions serious, left the 
 place, and has regularly ordered post-horses 
 whenever Lady Tiverton made her appearance 
 in the town where he was staying. Since his 
 marriage, they have been playing the same game 
 with two or three others, who fly before them 
 just as people retreat from the cholera. I only 
 hope she will not attempt the same system for 
 Henrietta.'' 
 
 " Depend upon it she will not, because in her 
 case a little finessing might not be amiss." 
 
 " Why in her case ?" — 
 
 " Because Lady Henrietta is not quite so 
 well qualified to do honour to the Book of 
 Beauty as her sister." 
 
 '* I thought you had better taste," replied 
 Dick, shrugging his shoulders. " Ismena is 
 the showiest girl in London ; but Henrietta is 
 the prettiest. As no one is present to report me, 
 I swear I never saw so sweet a countenance !"
 
 192 preferment; or, 
 
 " I am glad you think so. A season in society 
 may do something for her ; at present she 
 strikes me as unformed and insignificant." 
 
 *' It is difficult to pronounce upon one's sister. 
 Ismena, for instance, with all her airs and self- 
 sufficiency, is a person with whom I have no 
 patience ; yet though she remains on hand, it is 
 not for want of inspiring more than one grande 
 passion. Before Lady Tiverton understood the 
 thing as well as she does now, she used to have 
 all sorts of people staying at the Castle by way 
 of making it agreeable ; and there was a younger 
 brother of Sir Clarence Howard's who had not 
 only the impudence to fancy that he had a right 
 to fall in love with Lady Ismena Egerton, but 
 when Ismy spoke to my father and had him 
 dismissed the house, the fellow went out of his 
 mind and the Lord knows what. Then there 
 was the Russian secretary of legation at Flo- 
 rence who actually shot himself after a scene 
 with her ; yet, ten to one, though Henrietta is 
 fifty times more attractive, she will not produce 
 the same effect." 
 
 " Not drive a younger brother out of his
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 193 
 
 senses, perhaps, or cause a Russian sec. (pro- 
 bably after a run against him at play) to blow 
 his brains out; but catastrophes of that kind 
 are only good for popular singers, and those 
 kind of people, who want to fill a house for 
 their benefit. Nobody marries une demoiselle 
 aux aventures. The chances are that she must 
 be more or less in the wrong. By the way, 
 Dick, who were those people with whom I saw 
 you the other night in that private box at 
 Drury Lane ? — A pretty woman, certainly ; but 
 totally without tournure. The father's face was 
 new to me. Where the devil did you pick 
 them up ?" 
 
 " The Vassylls are our neighbours at Tiver- 
 ton Castle.'' 
 
 " Indeed ! — I don't remember them." 
 
 " They have not been long in Westmoreland. 
 They took West Hill two years ago of Lord 
 Hexham." 
 
 *' The young lady has des ecus, then ? — W^hy 
 don't you look after her? — she seemed very kind 
 the other night." 
 
 " As if you were not perfectly aware that the 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 194 preferment; or, 
 
 Vassylls are man and wife ! — What are their ecus 
 to me T 
 
 '* Something, even if the blue-eyed beauty be 
 really the old gentleman's wife, instead of his 
 heiress. There is nothing so ruinous as a 
 liaison with a poor man's virtuous partner. And 
 so it was an affaire de coeur that kept you so 
 snug at the Castle last winter, when you had 
 promised to meet me at Paris ?" 
 
 " You must first prove that I possess a heart 
 to have an affair with," replied Dick, stretching 
 himself and yawning. " All I am conscious of 
 possessing just now, is a ravenous appetite for 
 some devilled oysters. Three o'clock, by Jove ! 
 — time, my dear fellov/, that you should cast your 
 dressing-gown. Come down with me to the 
 Travellers', I entreat, and I will tell you more 
 about the Vassylls on our way."
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 195 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 On a beau se tuer le coeur a coups de vanite ; il lui 
 reste toujours un peu de sensibilite ! — Sophie Gay, 
 
 The Vassyllsj whom the Egertons were dis- 
 cussing, and who, in die esdmation of Tiver- 
 ton Castle, were only "the people who had 
 taken West Hill of Lord Hexham," stood on 
 somewhat higher ground in the opinion of the 
 world. 
 
 George Vassyll had, for twenty years of his 
 life, occupied in the colonies a high official ap- 
 pointment, which being luckily compatible with 
 the exercise of his profession as a lawyer, 
 he was able to retire from public life at less than 
 fifty years of age, with a considerable fortune, 
 and the honour of having declined knighthood. 
 
 K 2
 
 196 preferment; or, 
 
 The colony in which Mr. Vassyll had stopd 
 next in precedence to the governor, not being 
 one of those to which young ladies are sent on 
 consignment, with Manchester goods and other 
 marketable articles of British manufacture, he 
 had remained single till the realization of a 
 handsome property entitled him, on his return 
 to England, to pretend to the hand of a prettier 
 wife than he would have aspired to at an earlier 
 period of his fortunes. 
 
 The confusion caused by the entrance of the 
 rich old bachelor into certain circles of the young 
 and fair seemed to justify his presumption in re- 
 questing an introduction into the family of Mr. 
 Lumsden, of Devonshire Place, — by the prepos- 
 sessinir countenance and manners of one of whose 
 daughters he had been captivated at some recent 
 party. The Lumsdens were delighted. With 
 five unmarried daughters and a moderate income, 
 such a connexion as Mr. Vassyll's was highly de- 
 sirable. He was invited to dinner, — his rubber 
 was duly secured to him, — his colonial anecdotes 
 were listened to with respect ; — and it became a 
 matter of jest among the five girls, which of
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 197 
 
 them was the object of attraction. By degrees, 
 however, Anna, the third, ceased to enter into 
 the joke, and her silence and blushes decided it 
 amonor her sisters that she was to become Mrs. 
 Vassyll. 
 
 The decision of the yonng ladies was so far 
 premature, that Anna's embarrassment arose 
 only from anxiety lest she should not be the 
 favoured one of the family. She had listened 
 unmoved to her father's recital of the fine for- 
 tune Vassyll had brought home from the West 
 Indies, and to her mother's anticipations of the 
 handsome establishment he was likely to set up 
 in London. But while her sisters were dreaming 
 of the jewels and equipages which such a man 
 would lavish on his wife, Anna was captivated 
 by the union of strong sense and gentle manners 
 perceptible in their new acquaintance. 
 
 The plainness of Mr. Vassyll's dress, and the 
 simplicity of his demeanour, preserved him from 
 the uncouthness usually observable in persons 
 who have spent their lives in a colony. With 
 due allowance for his age and wig, he was really 
 a personable man ; and even had his fortune
 
 198 preferment; or, 
 
 been inconsiderable as those of the younger 
 sons, rising young lawyers andjunior partners of 
 city firms, who constituted the Lumsdens' ac- 
 quaintance, he would still have inspired Anna 
 Lumsden with a degree of esteem and affection 
 comprising all her present notions of love. 
 
 She was a very happy girl, therefore, when 
 her father announced, one morning after break- 
 fast, that Mr. Vassyll had made proposals for 
 her hand ; and her parents as happy, when they 
 saw that the marriage, so desirable in a worldly 
 point of view, would be also one of inclination. 
 Father, mother, brother, sisters, friends, all 
 were delighted ! — Mr. Vassyll did himself 
 honour in every preliminary arrangement. The 
 bride's fortune was given up to increase the 
 portions of her sisters ; and his wedding gifts 
 to everything bearing the name of Lumsden 
 were of the handsomest description. Of all the 
 brides who ever moistened their white satin with 
 tears, under the portico of that temple of ostenta- 
 tious matrimony, Marylebone Church, Anna's 
 prospects seemed destined to be the happiest. 
 She was an object of envy to the young ladies of
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 199 
 
 her acquaintance, and of affection to the man 
 whom she preferred to all the world. At nine- 
 teen years of age, what a destiny to have accom- 
 plished ! — 
 
 In due time, Mr. and Mrs. Vassyll settled 
 themselves in a showy house in Portland Place ; 
 with precisely the number of servants and 
 horses which Mrs. Lumsden had predicted to 
 the daughter who should be so lucky as to obtain 
 the preference. The mild pretty Mrs. Vassyll 
 became a beauty in the mediocre circle in which, 
 whether by birth or marriage, she was entitled 
 to move ; and while her husband lounged away 
 his day at his club or with his stock- broker, his • 
 pretty wife devoted herself to fashionable 
 shopping, visiting, or the park. She had 
 always one or two sisters with her, requiring 
 amusement ; and Vassyll, who was the kindest 
 of men, was pleased that his pretty wife should 
 enjoy the satisfaction of promoting her sisters' 
 pleasures, by dances at home, operas, plays, or 
 excursions to Epsom races. Even when she 
 had two children to occupy her time, and 
 complete the measure of her husband's domestic
 
 200 preferment; or, 
 
 happiness, Vassyll chose that she should enter 
 fully into the diversions of the season, and, at 
 the close, proceed with him to some cheerful 
 watering-place. He made no exactions upon 
 her time. He was sure of findinor Anna in her 
 place at breakfast and dinner ; smiling, well- 
 dressed, good-humoured, and affectionate. By 
 degrees, he gave up accompanying her to evening 
 parties; the late hours into which the Miss 
 Lumsdens tormented their chaperon disagreeing 
 with his health. But this created no estranjje- 
 ment between them. It gave him pleasure that 
 Anna should go out and be admired ; — and on 
 the morrow morning she was sure to relate to 
 him all she had seen and heard the preceding 
 night. 
 
 On the other hand, during the day-time, his 
 occupations were necessarily distinct from hers. 
 Like other ex-professional men with a floating 
 capital, he had been persuaded into becoming 
 an acting governor of several associations and 
 companies, which drew largely upon his time. 
 Because he was what is called an idle man, he 
 found himself condemned to slavery of a less
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 201 
 
 satisfactory kind than when dispensing justice 
 among the niggers. But all this, though it 
 served to keep the happy couple almost wholly 
 apart, had no influence upon their mutual affec- 
 tion. Anna, whose beauty became every day 
 more developed, was still kind-hearted, simple, 
 and grateful to her husband for the eminent 
 prosperity to which he had raised her. 
 
 In the Lumsden set, Mrs. Vassyll, of Portland 
 Place, was a very fine thing. Her family were 
 proud of her. Under her auspices, two of her sis- 
 ters had formed satisfactory connexions; one with 
 a young banker, another with a king's counsel; — 
 and when, four years after her marriage, the 
 prompt and noble aid afforded to her father by 
 her husband, in one of those money-panics 
 which occasionally convulse the mercantile exis- 
 tence of England, proved the means of preserv- 
 ing the house of Lumsden and Co., of Token- 
 House Yard, from bankruptcy, Anna felt that 
 she could never sufficiently devote herself to so 
 induWent and generous a husband. 
 
 But though on the best terms with herself and 
 the world, Mrs. Vassyll was not wholly exempt 
 
 K 3
 
 202 preferment; or, 
 
 from the little heart-burnings which beset the 
 secondary classes of society in London, who mar 
 their happiness and prosperity by a servile 
 competition with the great ; and instead of 
 forming an independent body, are perpetually 
 striving to push themselves into a sphere with 
 which they have no natural affinities. The 
 beauty of Mrs. Vassyll unluckily attracted so 
 much attention, that she had been promoted, by 
 a course of watering-places, to the acquaintance 
 of a few ladyships, not too fine to improve the 
 attractions of their balls by recruiting among 
 the pretty faces of ignoble circles. Among 
 these people, who sought her society in levity, 
 and were prepared to fling it off on pretexts 
 equally slight, Mrs. Vassyll contracted high 
 pretensions. Ill-educated, absolutely unen- 
 lightened on all those points of practical morality 
 so strangely neglected by the teachers of youth, 
 instead of grounding her standing in the world 
 upon the high character borne by her husband 
 and the wealth of which it was the foundation, 
 she was dazzled by the delight of being seen by 
 her Wimpole- Street friends in the opera-box of a 
 
 t
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 203 
 
 Lady Augusta; or having it known that an Irish 
 lord or two had graced the dinner-table of Mr. 
 Vassyll ! 
 
 She was so far justified in her folly, that 
 these unimportant facts really served to en- 
 hance her consequence in the eyes in which 
 she aspired to shine. Those fair friends who 
 were in the habit of choosing their gowns and 
 hats merely because similar ones had been worn 
 by some marchioness, and of garnishing their 
 conversation with anecdotes of great personages, 
 with whom they were unacquainted even by 
 sight, were induced by the same despicable 
 servility to think all the better of the wife of the 
 excellent George Vassyll, because her name was 
 on the visiting list of a few fashionable women, 
 every way inferior to her and hers. 
 
 Vanity affects the mind as opium-eating the 
 body. The deleterious potion of flattery once im- 
 bibed, the intoxication must be kept up, or life 
 becomes a blank. From the moment that Mrs. 
 Vassyll heard herself saluted on her entrance 
 into one of her friend Lady Augusta's fancy 
 balls by a murmur of admiration, she could no
 
 204 preferment; or, 
 
 longer content herself with the insipid carpet 
 dances of her former sphere; and began to avail 
 herself largely of her generous husband's desire 
 that she should outshine her rivals in dress and 
 equipage. She began to lose her satisfaction in 
 listening to Malibran and Lablache, unless she 
 found a sufficient number of opera-glasses 
 directed from the stage to her box. She began 
 to indulge in the vulgar appetite for being talked 
 of; and the smallest newspaper paragraph in 
 which her name appeared, as among the loungers 
 at the Zoological or the notabilities at some 
 vulgar ball, agitated her bosom with agreeable 
 emotions. 
 
 Despicable as such weakness may appear, it 
 was allied in the character of Mrs. George 
 Vassyll, as in that of fifty other women of her 
 class, with many amiable qualities. She was 
 kind, charitable, affectionate, a good daughter, 
 a loving wife and mother ; but she could not 
 resist her ambition of being classed among the 
 luminaries of the London season. 
 
 Mr. Vassyll, meanwhile, looked on, and, as is 
 not unusual with husbands, saw nothing. He
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 205 
 
 thought it very good-natured on the part of his 
 dear Anna to give up so much of her time and 
 tranquillity for the pleasure of diverting her 
 sisters ; and sometimes gently rallied her on 
 her preference for the company of lords and 
 ladies. But his knowledge of society was so 
 comprised within the barriers of colonial expe- 
 rience, that he could not properly appreciate 
 the sacrifices that were made either bv, or in 
 behalf of, his pretty wife. She was pleased, and 
 that was enough. 
 
 Liberal as he was, however, Mr. VassylPs 
 vulnerable point was that on which nearly every 
 individual of his sex is susceptible, — viz., his 
 pocket. When, on the Christmas succeed- 
 ing her fourth season in town, his beloved 
 Anna's annual bills were sent in, he was amazed 
 to perceive that the addition of three or four 
 fine ladies to her visiting list produced the 
 corresponding addition of three or four hun- 
 dred pounds to her expenditure. Though so 
 recently provided with costly jewels, she had 
 been tempted into the purchase of expensive 
 trinkets and superfluous gewgaws. As he him-
 
 206 preferment; or, 
 
 self observed, — ay, in a tone of reprehension, and 
 to her to whom he had never spoken before 
 except vi^ith vv^ords of endearment — '' She had 
 indulged in all the foolish whims and fancies of 
 a duchess." 
 
 Poor Anna wept bitterly at this first ebulli- 
 tion of displeasure, for she felt that it was me- 
 rited ; and for many days afterwards, could not 
 hear without a start the fatal single knocks at 
 the door, which she knew to announce claims 
 produced by further instances of her extrava- 
 gance. As far as possible, she attempted to con- 
 ceal them from his knowledge, so as at least to 
 postpone the admission of her offences. The 
 fact, however, was unconcealable, that Mr. 
 Vassyll had exceeded his income by a thousand 
 pounds ; his over-indulgence of his wife's ex- 
 pensive tastes being the source of the evil ! — 
 
 A man more experienced in the ways of 
 London society would have congratulated him- 
 self, when suddenly awakened to a sense of the 
 ordeal to which his young and pretty wife had 
 been exposed, that she had committed no 
 greater fault than a wanton waste of money.
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 207 
 
 For no one accused Mrs. Vassjll of coquetry, — 
 no one accused her of flirting ; — her error was 
 simply the fruit of a cold-blooded vanity, the 
 fruit in its turn of a misdirected education. But 
 Mr. Vassyll saw only the result, — felt only the 
 result, — complained only of the result; — that the 
 balance of his banker's book was eleven hundred 
 and thirteen pounds against him at the close of 
 the year ; — that he was obliged to sell out ; — that, 
 with a young family on the increase, his capital 
 was diminishing ! — 
 
 There is scarcely a man on earth, — certainly 
 none who has been four years married, — with 
 philosophy enough to bear such a grievance un- 
 resenting. Vassyll, whose chairmanship and 
 committeemanship for half-a-dozen joint-stock 
 companies kept his financial faculties ever 
 on the alert, was too sorely vexed to keep 
 silence. Even after Anna had confessed her 
 fault and promised amendment, he continued to 
 harp upon the jarring string. He even re- 
 minded her of his disinterested relinquishment 
 of her fortune ; and assured her that the aid he 
 had recently afforded to extricate Mr. Lumsden
 
 208 preferment; or, 
 
 from his difficulties, rendered it extremely per- 
 plexing to him to meet the demands produced 
 by her unexampled prodigality. While Anna, 
 with swelling heart, sat mortified and silent, her 
 follies were recapitulated and dwelt upon, item 
 by item. Her children's destinies, she was 
 assured, would be endangered by such wanton 
 waste; and the examples of all the Mrs. Smiths 
 and Browns with whom he had been acquainted 
 at Barbadoes, were quoted as a proof to poor 
 Mrs. Vassyll how well and how respectably a 
 woman may live without Brussels veils and bird- 
 of-paradise feathers ! 
 
 The angry husband at length made his exit 
 from the dressing - room, satisfied that his 
 harangue had produced a startling effect. And 
 so it had, — by irretrievably estranging the 
 affections of his wife ! — He had let himself down 
 in her estimation by his circumstantial upbraid- 
 ing. It was his apparent loftiness of purpose 
 and openness of hand which had in the first 
 instance fascinated her youthful fancy ; and after 
 hearing him leisurely recite the particulars of a 
 haberdasher's bill, her reverence was at an end.
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 209 
 
 And then, his allusion to her want of fortune, 
 her frugal breeding, — to her father's embarrass- 
 ments, — how mean, how pitiful ! — If ever woman 
 ran risk of detesting a once-loved husband, it 
 was Mrs. Vassyll on that memorable eighteenth 
 of January ! — 
 
 Still, she felt that she was in fault ; and, still 
 more to her credit, felt that she was not strong 
 enough to resist further temptation. Three days 
 of incessant musing over her conduct, — over the 
 conduct held towards her by her husband, — and 
 over the conduct she should have expected him 
 to hold under such provocation, — did more 
 towards the maturing of Mrs. Vassyll's charac- 
 ter than the preceding five years of her married 
 life. She saw that her happiest hours were over, 
 — the hours of her girlish illusions, — the hours of 
 her implicit reliance upon the superiority of her 
 husband. But she resolved that, having con- 
 quered her infatuation in his favour, she would 
 conquer her own weakness; and her self-exa- 
 mination ended with an earnest petition to Mr. 
 Vassyll to give up his house in town and settle 
 peaceably in the country.
 
 210 preferment; or, 
 
 " I forewarn you," said she, with a degree of 
 self-possession which her previous agitation ren- 
 dered only more remarkable, — "that if we 
 remain here, all that has so greatly offended you 
 will recur to offend you again. I cannot answer 
 for myself, — I cannot throw off the habits I have 
 acquired, — I cannot extricate myself from the 
 set of society in which I am engaged. You have 
 often expressed your regret that, instead of fixing 
 yourself in town, you had not purchased an 
 estate. It is not too late. Let us give up Lon- 
 don. The children will be all the healthier for 
 being reared in the country, and we all the 
 happier for seeing them flourish." 
 
 ** No doubt we should,— were such a change in 
 my power," exclaimed Vassyll, angrily. " But, 
 relying upon your disposition to assist me in 
 living respectably upon our income, I have 
 settled in town by a long lease of this house ; 
 by engaging in important avocations; by — " 
 
 " You might easily get rid of your lease," per- 
 sisted Anna, steadily; *' and surely your engage- 
 ments as gratuitous director of one or two com- 
 panies need not be put in competition with the
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 211 
 
 well-being of your family ? — I candidly tell you 
 that you * have scotched the snake, not killed it ;' 
 and that so surely as we pass the coming season 
 in town, we shall be betrayed into spending 
 twice as much money as we can afford. I entreat 
 you, my dear Vassyll, to look out for a place in 
 the country : remember, / entreat you /" — 
 
 " Entreat as much as you choose," cried Vas- 
 syll, testily. " Unless you furnish me with the 
 means of complying with your requests, your 
 earnestness is thrown away. I have advanced 
 to your father every guinea of ready money I 
 can command. Should he fail in his en^affe- 
 
 o o 
 
 ments to refund it, or by embarking again in 
 ridiculous speculations endanger the total loss of 
 the property, our children will be all but 
 beggars. But even if eventually repaid, at 
 present I am totally prevented from indulging 
 your inclinations, or consulting my own inte- 
 rests.' No doubt you would like a country life 
 for the greater portion of the year ; but you 
 ought to bear in mind, Anna, that a woman who 
 brings no fortune to her husband is, or ought to 
 be, scrupulous in the indulgence of her fancies."
 
 212 preferment; or, 
 
 Anna seemed to shrink into herself as she pre- 
 pared to quit the room. 
 
 Yet in spite of the warning thus afforded, Mr. 
 Vassyll was furious when the return of the season 
 plunged his wife into new dissipations and fur- 
 ther extravagance, and the return of Christmas 
 brought the evidence of their renewal. 
 
 But when Anna, who, though still giddy and 
 still renowned as the pretty Mrs. Vassyll of Port- 
 land Place, was still a virtuous wife and tender 
 mother, not only repeated her entreaties that 
 they might retire into the country, but suggested 
 that, if unable to purchase, they might certainly 
 rent a family seat, the angry man found him- 
 self in conscience as well as prudence bound to 
 comply ; and Lord Hexham's estate of West 
 Hill, in the lake country, being just then the 
 object of one of George Robins's flaming adver- 
 tisements, Vassyll fell a victim to the eloquence 
 of the rostrum, — took the place for a lease of one- 
 and-twenty years, — bade adieu to Peele's coffee- 
 house and the committee-rooms of Basinghall 
 Street, — and settled himself and his family within 
 eight miles of Tiverton Castle.
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 213 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Like bi-fronted Janus, we should look 
 
 Backward as forward. Though a flattering calm 
 
 Bids us urge on, a sudden tempest raised, 
 
 Not feared, much less expected, in our rear, 
 
 May foully fall upon us and distract us 
 
 To our confusion. Massinger. 
 
 To settle in a new neighbourhood is an inter- 
 esting crisis in life ; and a first introduction to 
 those on whose agreeableness or disagreeableness 
 must depend a considerable portion of our 
 future comfort, an exciting event. The Vas- 
 syllsj however, were pre-assured of a favourable 
 reception. The beauty of the wife and the re- 
 spectability of the husband were pledges in their 
 favour ; more particularly as their income was 
 known to be large, and West Hill had been un- 
 tenanted for the last half-dozen years. Lord
 
 214 preferment; or, 
 
 Hexham, who occasionally slept there a night or 
 two on his way to the Moors, was nothing com- 
 pared with a Mr. Vassyll, who threatened to live 
 there all the year round, and bestow as much 
 white soup upon the county as the most esta- 
 blished ball-giver in the neighbourhood. 
 
 All the world, accordingly, left cards with " the 
 people who had taken West Hill,'' and all the 
 world was pleased with them when the visit was 
 returned. Mrs. Vassyll's unassuming and com- 
 posed manners propitiated even the fastidious 
 taste of Tiverton Castle. A well-dressed, agree- 
 able woman, always come-at-able, was a real ac- 
 quisition to the Egertons ; more especially when 
 compared with most of the country neighbours 
 within their reach. They suspected she had 
 lived in a very bad set in town, as her face was 
 new to them ; but as she had the tact to make 
 no specific allusion to her London haunts, this 
 signified little. If the new lady of West Hill 
 did not frequent Al mack's and was not avowed 
 of the Almackites, she was at least dressed by 
 their own milliners and jewellers, and every way 
 a presentable person.
 
 I 
 
 ( 
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 215 
 
 To poor Anna the vicinity of Tiverton Castle 
 was at once a blessing and a curse. Her vanity 
 was gratified by finding within easy reach the 
 description of society which it had cost her so 
 much pains, money, and mortification to seek in 
 London ; but from the moment of her first 
 dinner-party at the Castle, she felt that the dan- 
 gers she had fled from were about to beset her 
 in her remote retreat. 
 
 Again, again, and more vividly than ever, the 
 temptations of vanity were around her ! The 
 Tivertons must be invited in return. The Tiver- 
 tons must be entertained in some degree in the 
 style to which they were accustomed. A thou- 
 sand habits and novelties struck her in their esta- 
 blishment which must be immediately adopted in 
 her own. She dreaded the thought of detecting 
 Lady Tiverton's eye-glass fixed upon some defi- 
 ciency in the arrangements of her tables, or Lady 
 Ismena's fastidious lip curled at the common- 
 place decorations of her boudoir ; and was 
 already planning improvements at West Hill, 
 with a view to call forth their commendations. 
 
 But experience was so far improving the
 
 216 preferment; or, 
 
 wisdom of Mr. Vassyll, that he began to 
 hold remonstrance better than reproof; and 
 instead of allowing his wife, as before, to run 
 unchecked a career of extravagance, he ac- 
 quainted her at once, in measured terms, that as 
 his income did not equal by a sixth part that of 
 his neighbour the Earl, he had no intention of 
 competing with the magnificence of Tiverton 
 Castle ; and that unless his noble neighbours 
 could be entertained on his present service of 
 plate, and with the furniture selected for West 
 Hill by the late Marchioness of Hexham, they 
 should not be entertained at all. 
 
 To this marital decree Mrs. Vassyll was 
 forced to submit. But the tone in which it was 
 issued completed her disgust ; and the first day 
 the Tivertons dined at West Hill, their pretty 
 hostess, blushing with the shame of having no 
 iced hock, no claret pitchers, no macedoine to 
 offer them, became convinced that her husband 
 was not only a tyrant, but a Goth. 
 
 Instead of perceiving that her new friends 
 congratulated themselves on finding West Hill, 
 for the first time, an acquisition to the neigh-
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 217 
 
 bourbood, she dwelt only upon the deficiencies 
 to which they were totally indifferent. 
 
 *' How sick I am of hearing you talk of those 
 people at West Hill !" cried Dick Egerton to 
 Lady Ismena, when, on his return from Paris 
 some months afterwards, he found his sister en- 
 thusiastic in praise of the Vassylls. 
 
 '* Consider what a relief they are to us after 
 the humdrum obsequiousness of those horrid 
 Waltons and Davises," replied the young lady. 
 Mrs. Vassyll's voice is a contr'alto, and she can 
 take a second very tolerably. Then the he 
 Vassyll relieves us of papa when we have people 
 staying in the house, by prosing to him about 
 what they call the money-market — though what 
 the word means I can scarcely conjecture." 
 
 "It means a sort of Coven t Garden, situated in 
 the heart of the city, where sovereigns are sold 
 in quart measures, like French beans, and 
 dollars in sacks, like potatoes," said Egerton, 
 who had not always patience with his sister's 
 affectation. — '' But these are no reasons why I 
 should endanger my mare's knees with that 
 horrible cross road by the crags ! If you want 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 218 preferment; or, 
 
 to ride to West Hill, surely you can venture 
 with old John, as you say you have often done 
 before ?''— 
 
 " It being precisely as great a compliment for 
 John, the groom, to make his appearance in 
 Mr. Vassyll's stables, as for Mr. Egerton to 
 make his in Mrs. Vassyll's drawing-room !" re- 
 torted Lady Ismena, with a contemptuous smile. 
 '' I certainly fancied it would be a proof of 
 good breeding if you rode over to make the 
 acquaintance of these new settlers in a county 
 of which papa is Lord Lieutenant. But, 
 just as you please : Mrs. Vassyll will probably 
 live and die in peace, as much as if she had 
 received the vast compliment of your visit." 
 
 ^' No doubt she will ! — How the devil should 
 my acquaintance prove an acquisition to people 
 who, I understand from my father, have been 
 livinoj all their lives with cits and stockbrokers ? 
 ,Tust conceive me, or Adolphus, planted in a 
 circle of such people ; — pressed flat by a weight 
 of civility from the fat comfortable domestic 
 couple who are distributing their coals and 
 blankets this Christmas at West Hill !''
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 219 
 
 Again Lady Ismena indulged in a contemp- 
 tuous smile. But her younger sister, who had 
 listened in silence to their dispute, now broke in 
 — *' Mr. and Mrs. Vassyll fat and comfortable !" 
 cried Lady Henrietta; — " that gaunt, stern, dis- 
 agreeable man — that slender, elegant woman ! — 
 My dear brother, Paris must have rendered you 
 more nearsighted than ever !*' 
 
 " Where am I likely to have ever seen such peo- 
 ple, child ?" replied he. *' However, as Ismy seems 
 determined to favour me with a scramble across the 
 country, let me even brave my miseries at once." 
 
 But Lady Ismena had been long her bro- 
 ther's scholar, and had profited by his les- 
 sons. It was now her' turn to refuse. Anxious 
 to hear him recant his blasphemies against her 
 new favourite, she resolved that accident should 
 bring the fastidious dandy into the company of 
 Mrs. Vassyll. 
 
 The design did not prosper. Egerton had 
 been three weeks in Cumberland, — had been 
 seen hunting, shooting, riding, dining, at all 
 the country places in the neighbourhood, and 
 was still only heard of at West Hill ! The dis- 
 
 l2
 
 220 preferment; or, 
 
 courtesy of Lord Tiverton's younger son was 
 very little thought of by Mr. Vassyll, whose 
 time was fully occupied by the unwonted task 
 of managing an estate. But Anna, already 
 fascinated by the highbred manners of Lady 
 Tiverton and her daughters, and the gracious- 
 ness of her welcome at the Castle, was really 
 curious to see the brother whom she had heard 
 vaunted by Lady Ismena and Lady Henrietta 
 as the most agreeable young man in London : — 
 " handsome as Lord Egerton, but far more 
 entertaining !" She was surprised that they had 
 not brought him to visit her ; and her conjec- 
 tures became so strongly excited, that when at 
 length an accidental meeting took place between 
 the families, (the Egertons being on horseback 
 in the high road, and Mrs. Vassyll airing in her 
 open carriage,) great was the surprise on both 
 sides ! Dick Egerton was as much amazed to dis- 
 cover in their new neighbour a countenance by 
 which he had been struck at the Opera and other 
 public places, as Mrs. Vassyll to find in Lady 
 Ismena's overlauded brother, a person of very 
 ordinary attractions.
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 221 
 
 " Not half so handsome as Lord Egerton !" 
 was her reply to Lady Ismena's whispered in- 
 quiries of her opinion ; a remark which the 
 young lady was careful to repeat to her self- 
 sufficient brother when, after ten minutes' 
 gossip, the parties separated to pursue their 
 airing. 
 
 " She thinks so, does she ?" — was Egerton's 
 muttered reply. But the disparaging remark of 
 his new acquaintance could not obliterate from 
 his remembrance the elegance of her form, the 
 fine oval of her face, the lustrous blackness of the 
 bands of hair falling low upon her cheeks, or the 
 transparency of her clear brown complexion. 
 As he rode on in silence, he could not forbear re- 
 gretting that a woman so formed to be an orna- 
 ment to society, should have thrown away her 
 days among a set of Hottentots, unworthy to 
 breathe the breath of civilized life. Already he 
 had ascertained that " the people who had 
 taken West Hill" were nobodies. It was, in- 
 deed, mortifying that a nobody should be so 
 surpassingly lovely ! — 
 
 Piqued by her impertinent preference of his
 
 222 preferment; or, 
 
 brother, he resolved to waste a little time in 
 bringing her to a different way of thinking. 
 There was no difficulty in obtaining from his 
 father a message on county business, entitling him 
 to wait the following day upon Mr. Vassyll; who, 
 as he expected, proposed, at the conclusion of 
 his visit, that he should repair from the library 
 to the drawing-room. 
 
 Seated calmly at her little work-table, in a 
 simple morning dress, the beauty of Mrs. Vassyll 
 was far more conspicuous than on the preceding 
 day. Dick Egerton could not conceal his amaze- 
 ment that anything without the pale of Almack's 
 should be so elegant, so bewitching; and in- 
 stead of following up as a jest his scheme of 
 supplanting his elder brother in the admiration of 
 *' the associate of cits and stockbrokers," he, the 
 eschewer of morning visits, sat more than an 
 hour at West Hill, entranced by the charms of 
 the pale and gentle hostess, who was exerting 
 herself to do its honours ! 
 
 Already her paleness and gentleness had 
 decided him that she was not in the full enjoy- 
 ment of the vulgar connubial happiness he had
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 223 
 
 attributed to a Mr. and Mrs. Vassyll, of Port- 
 land Place. There is a peculiar restlessness of 
 expression in the eyes of a woman in company 
 with a husband with whom she is on bad terms, 
 which the experienced tact of Egerton did not fail 
 to detect in those of his new beauty. He saw 
 that Anna was discontented with her destinies. 
 
 Since her domestication with her lord and 
 master in a secluded country seat, her dissatisfac- 
 tions were, in truth, fifty-fold increased. Sepa- 
 rated for the first time from her family, alienated 
 for the first time from society, she felt ex- 
 ceedingly dull, and attributed the lowness of her 
 spirits to incompatibility of taste and temper with 
 a husband whose years more than doubled her own. 
 She had now ample leisure for musing ; she had 
 now full opportunity for interrogating her heart. 
 She sometimes allowed herself to admit that 
 she had thrown away her youth in exchange for 
 a social position inefficient to secure her happi- 
 ness; and the company of a man who thought 
 more of a cypher added to his amount of bank 
 stock than of the rich treasure of her affections. 
 The faculties of poor Anna's uncultivated mind
 
 224 preferment; or, 
 
 were bursting into the full development of wo- 
 manhood. She had learned to survey and es- 
 timate her destinies; and, as Dick Egerton 
 rightly conjectured, the investigation gave rise 
 to feelings of disappointment and vexation. 
 She experienced want of sympathy, of com- 
 panionship ; she sighed after the refinements of 
 Tiverton Castle and the society of those whose 
 affection would enhance its pleasures ; and shud- 
 dered as she turned from the dreams of happi- 
 ness in which she permitted her solitude to 
 revel, to the realities of a domestic evening with 
 a man who snored in his easy chair — pored over 
 the newspaper through his spectacles — or com- 
 forted his catarrh by spitting into the fireplace. 
 His valuable qualities were forgotten — his kind- 
 ness was disdained — for she found his company 
 insupportable. 
 
 Such were the sentiments which imparted 
 sadness and abstraction to Mrs. Vassyll's young 
 brow, and which Egerton had the art to dis- 
 cover and turn to account. Lady Tiverton, who 
 was too much occupied in manoeuvring for her 
 daughters to take much heed of the movements
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 225 
 
 of her son, scarcely noticed that the fastidious 
 Dick condescended to prolong to three months 
 the three weeks he had threatened to devote to 
 shooting his father's pheasants and coursing his 
 hares ; but it served her as a capital pretext 
 for inviting to the Castle two or three young 
 lords and heirs-apparent, whom he deigned 
 to call his friends. She did not perceive that 
 the greater portion of his time was spent at 
 West Hill. She did not perceive that on his 
 return home he was absent and irritable; no 
 longer affectedly absent or conceitedly irritable, 
 but suffering under the genuine influence of 
 feelings painfully pre-occupied. 
 
 For to his great surprise, the young gentle- 
 man who had intended to come, see, and over- 
 come, found the associate of cits and stock- 
 brokers, if not insensible to his attractions, in- 
 flexible by his attentions ; and he was compelled 
 to alter the mood of the latter verb, and own 
 himself overcome in his turn. In the glare and 
 bustle of London, the devotedness of a young 
 Honourable holding so high a place in the lists 
 of fashion, might not perhaps have been without 
 
 l3
 
 226 preferment; or, 
 
 danger to a woman whose weakness was vanity, 
 — a frailty of the head rather than the heart. But 
 amid the romantic glades of Cumberland, Dick 
 Egerton was out of his sphere. The tone of his 
 character was unaccordant with the time and 
 place. His listlessness, real or assumed, became 
 tiresome in an habitual morning visitor, whose 
 pretensions there were none to admire ; and 
 though the superficial refinements of the Lon- 
 don dandy and Parisian elegant tended to in- 
 crease her disgust towards the unpolished habits 
 of her husband, they did not serve to fill up the 
 void in her aching heart. 
 
 Egerton was too wary, indeed, to risk his dis- 
 missal by the avowal of his projects; but when, 
 at the close of three months' daily and almost 
 hourly meetings, and the intimacy promoted by 
 the theatricals and other familiar diversions of a 
 country house during the Christmas holidays, 
 the young M.P. found himself compelled to re- 
 pair to London for the meeting of Parliament 
 without having effected anything by his assi- 
 duities, unless to render Mrs. Vassyll more 
 dispirited and her home more distasteful than
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 227 
 
 ever, he swore on his way up to town to banish his 
 rustic idol from his thoughts ; and found himself 
 thinking of her an hour afterwards with a degree 
 of ardour more nearly resembling genuine pas- 
 sion than it had ever appeared probable would 
 warm the bosom of a disciple of his uncle Adol- 
 phus. 
 
 Under such an influence, young Egerton 
 began to speak and act more naturally than 
 he was ever known to do before. St. James's 
 Street disowned him, and his clubs knew him no 
 longer. Exclusively occupied with the idea of 
 returning to Tiverton Castle, and spending his 
 mornings as before in confidential idling over a 
 work-table beside which the sweetest of human 
 faces smiled at his sallies or argued against his 
 fantastical theories, — he forgot to be impertinent, 
 he forgot to be listless ; and it was at that period 
 he acquired the reputation reported to him by 
 Adolphus Egerton, of being a most attentive 
 member of parliament. Unattracted by the 
 pleasures of society or the allurements of dissi- 
 pation, Egerton scarcely seemed himself, and 
 any change was for the better !
 
 228 preferment; or, 
 
 The end of the suminer, or rather the begin- 
 ning of autumn, which periodically loosens the 
 bondage of modern senates, sent him back into 
 Cumberland ; but only to convert the indiffer- 
 ence of Mrs. Vassyll into displeasure. Having 
 suffered his sentiments to become apparent, she 
 not only resented the insult, but resented his 
 having forced her to resent it. 
 
 For want of companionship and sympathy at 
 home, George Vassyll was now sinking into 
 a country gentleman in the narrowest accepta- 
 tion of the term ; that is, a country gentleman 
 intent only upon extracting the greatest amount 
 of pence from the smallest amount of land ; and 
 thus, abandoned to herself by the husband 
 whose soul was wrapt up in his farm, the society 
 of an intelligent human being was too valuable 
 to be relinquished without a pang. But the 
 pang once over ; Anna was thankful that the 
 offence had been given and punished ; and that 
 her respect for herself and love for her children 
 enabled her to resent pretensions, of which her 
 indifference as a wife might otherwise have dimi- 
 nished her abhorrence.
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 229 
 
 When Egerton quitted on tJiis occasion the 
 wilds to which he had condemned himself, it 
 was no longer in sorrow, but in anger. A 
 feeling of pique had originally drawn his atten- 
 tion towards the country neighbour who pre- 
 ferred Lord Egerton's personal appearance to 
 his own ; and deeper vindictiveness now stimu- 
 lated him to the pursuit of one by whom his 
 addresses had been contemptuously rejected. 
 Poor George Vassyll, who, according to the pro- 
 verbial weakness of husbands, evinced a prefer- 
 ence for Dick Egerton's society in proportion as 
 Dick Egerton evinced a preference for the 
 society of his wife, had taken care to acquaint 
 the young friend who so politely franked his 
 letters and supplied his table with venison from 
 Tiverton Castle, that he should have the plea- 
 sure of meeting him in London in the spring, 
 «' Mrs. Vassyll having made him promise to 
 take her to town for a few weeks, that she might 
 see her family, who found a journey into Cum- 
 berland inconvenient ;" — which prospect im- 
 parted patience to her lover. 
 
 " At a London hotel for a whole month
 
 230 piieferment; or, 
 
 of the season ? — C'est Id ou je V attends !" — was 
 Egerton's secret exclamation. And it was his first 
 appearance in public with his country neighbours 
 which excited the attention and called forth the 
 inquiries of Adolphus Egerton. 
 
 During the first fortnight after the Vassylls' 
 arrival he studiously abstained from coming 
 in contact with them : leaving his card at the 
 hotel as a matter of ceremony, and noticing 
 Mrs. Vassyll only by a distant bow when they 
 met in public. In spite of her previous inten- 
 tions of reducing him to this humble posture, 
 Anna was disappointed ! She chose the reserve 
 established between them to be her act and 
 deed, rather than his own. Her sisters, too, 
 were indignant that a member of the Tiverton 
 family, with whom the Vassylls were so intimate 
 in the country, should pointedly keep aloof in 
 town. 
 
 " They supposed Mr. Egerton did not think 
 them fine enough to be seen with at the Zoolo- 
 gical Gardens, or calling their carriage at the 
 Opera !" And Anna, to whom he had sworn 
 that to be the meanest of her servants were pre-
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 231 
 
 ferment beyond his hopes, resolved that they 
 should, on some single occasion, witness her 
 influence over the feelings of the wittiest and 
 most fashionable of the men of wit and fashion 
 about town. 
 
 As Egerton had already said, it was there he 
 awaited her ! — When, on the next occasion of 
 their meeting in public, Mrs. Vassyll stopped 
 to address him with a captivating smile, he ac- 
 cepted the extended olive branch with an air 
 of most contrite humility ; and upon her in- 
 viting him to visit her at her hotel, flew to obey 
 the summons. She expressed a wish to go to 
 Almack's, and he not only exerted his interest * 
 to procure subscriptions for her and Julia 
 Lumsden, but he, who was so careful with 
 whom he appeared in public as never to offer 
 his arm to his sister during her first season, 
 conducted her into the sanctuary of fashion. 
 
 He was so far justified, indeed, that the 
 admiration conceded to his lovely companion 
 was unprecedented even in that region of 
 '* sensations ;" for the peculiarly elegant style 
 of Mrs. VassylFs beauty, her slender figure.
 
 232 preferment; or, 
 
 and diminutive but shapely head, seemed formed 
 to grace the aristocratic circles into which he 
 had now secured her admittance. Egerton 
 enjoyed the full triumph to which so vain a 
 man could not be insensible, of beholding the 
 object of his admiration an object of admiration 
 to all the world; as well as of finding her, for 
 the first time, in some degree sensible to his 
 own. 
 
 Had he conjectured, indeed, that the conces- 
 sions with which he was honoured were the re- 
 sult of cold-blooded calculation, that he was 
 shewn off as an humble servant to Mrs. Vassyll's 
 ignoble and his own fashionable friends, there 
 would have been some excuse for the game he 
 was playing in return. But he attributed all 
 to the success of his stratagems. " His abrupt 
 departure from Cumberland had brought Mrs, 
 Vassyll to her senses, and determined her to 
 bring her husband to town ; and now, poor 
 thing, her only difficulty seemed to lie in making 
 it sufficiently apparent that she repented her 
 former cruelty." 
 
 By the husband, meanwhile, he was wel-
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 233 
 
 corned to the house as " his noble friend, the 
 Earl of Tiverton's younger son, — a harmless, 
 coxcombical lad," (most gentlemen of threescore 
 years look upon young men of five-and-twenty 
 as harmless lads,) "whom Anna was kind enough 
 to patronize, in order to procure a beau for her 
 sisters ;" and the prudent George Vassyll, who 
 for years had legislated over the lives and for- 
 tunes of thousands of his majesty's tropical lieges, 
 and who would have detected an error of a far- 
 thing in a quarterly treasury account, actually 
 gave a general invitation to his house and table 
 to the promising pupil of that arch-adept in 
 rouerie, Adolphus Egerton ! —
 
 234 prefeRx\ient; or. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Didst thou but know the inly touch of love, 
 Thou wouldst as soon go kindle fire with snow 
 As seek to quench the fire of love with words. 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 A HAPPY summer awaited the Egertons of 
 Hurley House, when their eldest son returned 
 at length from foreign service to enjoy three 
 months' leave of absence in the bosom of his 
 family. His proud father was never weary of 
 presenting '« my son, Captain Egerton," to the 
 recent settlers in the neighbourhood ; or of 
 pointing out that the young soldier overtopped 
 him in height by three inches and three quarters ; 
 while John was in his turn overjoyed to find 
 Hurley as sociable and cheerful as ever, — his 
 little sister developed into a lovely young
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 235 
 
 woman, — and his old flame, Georgy Heseltine, 
 still unmarried. 
 
 " I don't know how it is," cried he to his 
 sister, the morning following his arrival, "but I 
 always fancy the sun shines brighter at Hurley 
 than elsewhere. I have seen something of the 
 world since I left you, my dear Mary, and a 
 plaguy number of show-houses and fine places; 
 but in all their grand pleasure-grounds, no 
 flowers so fine as in my mother's bit of a garden 
 yonder, and no pastures so rich as those of my 
 father's little farm ! — Eastwick, too ! — I certainly 
 never saw a place so charming of its size as 
 Eastwick — so well laid out — " 
 
 " After the taste of Georgy Heseltine," in- 
 terrupted Mary, with an arch smile. " Yes, 
 yes, — I admit that both Eastwick and its young 
 lady are perfect ; and yet, my dear brother, I 
 cannot encourage you to cherish too strong an 
 affection for either." 
 
 " I thought you wrote me word, last Christ- 
 mas, that Georgiana had refused Philip Mit- 
 ford?" — cried John, affecting to speak cheerfully, 
 but deeply colouring.
 
 236 preferment; or, 
 
 " And so I did, — bat without adding that it 
 was for love of Captain Egerton." 
 
 " For love of whom, then ?" 
 
 '' If I knew, I should not tell you," replied 
 Miss Egerton. ^' But my conscience is at ease ; 
 I have no suspicion of the object of her pre- 
 ference. Georgy does like some one, — or she 
 surely would not, when her father is so anxious 
 to see her settled in life, reject so many advan- 
 tageous matches : — Lord Holwell's eldest son, 
 for instance, — Sir Clarence Howard, and several 
 others. The Eastwick heiress is becoming a 
 regular object of speculation to the idlers at 
 Tunbridge Wells." 
 
 " If Miss Heseltine be aware of that, I no 
 longer wonder at her hesitation." 
 
 *' Mr. Mitford at least ought to be a dis- 
 interested suitor," observed Mary ; " handsome, 
 well-connected, rich; — yet I am almost convinced 
 she has refused him.** 
 
 '* Only almost, then?" demanded John Egerton, 
 hastily. 
 
 " Nay, judge for yourself. Last summer, he 
 was an assiduous visitor at Eastwick, — scarcely
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 237 
 
 a day but I met him there, and most people 
 concluded they were engaged. When suddenly 
 his visits ceased, and from that day to this he 
 has never entered Captain Heseltine's doors." 
 
 " Suspicious enough, I admit. But in what 
 terms does Mitford speak of Georgiana?" 
 
 " I have no opportunity of judging. We 
 seldom see him, except in public. Unless when 
 he used to visit at Eastwick, the Mitfords do 
 not trouble themselves with this side of the 
 county." 
 
 " This side of the county has no great loss ! 
 They are cold, disagreeable, people. I believe, 
 however, they are civil to Julius ?" 
 
 '' As civil as Julius will allow them. But he 
 has almost given up society. Aunt Rachel 
 complains that he not only makes a prisoner of 
 himself, but has nearly converted the parsonage 
 into a penitentiary." 
 
 " I dare say the old woman plagues him to 
 death ! Nevertheless, the account you give me 
 of him is the only drawback upon my happi- 
 ness in arriving at home." 
 
 " You must have misunderstood me last
 
 238 preferment; or, 
 
 night," cried Mary. '' I told you that he was 
 more looked up to than any clergyman in this 
 part of the country, — that people went any dis- 
 tance to hear him preach, — that his opinion is 
 quoted by men double his age, — that his friends 
 are more careful of letting their little follies 
 come to his knowledge than to that of his 
 elders." 
 
 '' In short, that he sets up for a saint ! — an 
 unlucky pretension, considering the life he led 
 at college." 
 
 " But are not most men giddy at college ? 
 And is it not natural that his opinions should 
 have become more serious ?" — 
 
 " The man who is a sinner at three-and- 
 twenty, my dear Mary, and a saint a year after- 
 wards, runs some chance of being mistaken for 
 an impostor." 
 
 '' No one ever accused Julius of hypocrisy !" 
 cried Mary, warmly. 
 
 •* Neither do I, my dear. I fear that he is 
 only too much in earnest, — for such sudden 
 transitions are seldom permanent. One who 
 has changed so suddenly, may change again ; —
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 239 
 
 and the second state of that man be worse than 
 the first." 
 
 " Not when his reformation has been matter 
 of conviction. I have seldom heard Julius 
 argue on matters of religion, except in the 
 pulpit ; but I am convinced my brother's faith is 
 as fervent as his practices are strict." 
 
 " Very likely ; but he gives me the idea of a 
 man who thinks it so probable he may not do 
 enough, that he screws himself up into doing 
 too much." 
 
 " Just what I once heard Georgiana Hesel- 
 tine observe about Julius ! — She said it was 
 hazardous for so young a man to create for 
 himself a standard of morality so much beyond 
 that of the rest of the world." 
 
 '' Did she say so ? — A strong remark for a 
 girl of her age ! — Georgiana is afraid of her old 
 playfellow being caught tripping, — eh ?" — 
 
 '* She was angry just then with Julius, for 
 having refused to be put in the commission of 
 the peace, on my grandfather's name being 
 withdrawn; in consequence of which, Sir Cla- 
 rence Howard became the nearest magistrate to
 
 240 PREFERMENT ; OR, 
 
 Helstone, and the results have been sadly inju- 
 rious to the parish." 
 
 " He had scruples, I suppose ; — or perhaps 
 voted the thing a bore." 
 
 "Julius vote any sort of trouble a bore? — You 
 have no conception of the laborious life he 
 leads !" 
 
 " Only because he chooses to affect the primi- 
 tive apostle ! — And all for the sake of the little 
 obscure living of Helstone ! — For he will never 
 rise in the church. — My uncle's interest is a 
 hopeless case ; and I am told Julius has given so 
 much offence to his clerical brethren in this 
 diocese, that his chance here is at an end." 
 
 '' Meanwhile I believe him to be perfectly 
 happy and perfectly contented,'* said Mary, 
 warming in defence of her favourite brother, 
 " which is more than can be said of many of his 
 clerical brethren in this or any other diocese. 
 Very few opportunities of preferment would 
 induce Julius to quit Helstone; his influence 
 there is so great ! Rely upon it, he has not the 
 slightest desire to quit Helstone." 
 
 '* Then he is indeed an altered man !" cried
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 241 
 
 Captain Egerton, endeavouring to laugh off her 
 anxiety. " And now, come and help me through 
 my first visit to Eastvvick ; — or no ; on second 
 thoughts, I had rather go alone. I do not want 
 your two bright eyes fixed upon my face to note 
 my embarrassment in seeing Georgiana again, 
 or her unconcern in seeing wze." 
 
 Mary was still meditating a reply, when the 
 old Captain and his daughter unexpectedly made 
 their appearance ; and the cheerful cordiality of 
 Miss Heseltine's greeting fully justified Captain 
 Egerton's anticipations of her unconcern. Not 
 a blush, not a moment's reserve ! — With both 
 hands extended, Georgiana offered him the frank 
 welcome of a sister. 
 
 " Wonderfully grown, indeed !" was her 
 father's ejaculation, — seeing in the fine young 
 man before him the schoolboy he had formerly 
 tipped on his departure for Winchester, and 
 forgetting that his stature had been stationary 
 for half-a-dozen years past ; and when reminded 
 by Mrs. Egerton, who now joined the little 
 party, that since John was last staying at Hur- 
 ley, he had been quartered two years in Ireland, 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 242 preferment; or, 
 
 and stationed two more in the Mediterranean, 
 the old gentleman began to be almost as much 
 interested in his favour as in that of the scape- 
 grace Harry. He had a thousand inquiries to 
 make concerning the wilderness of monkeys, 
 both fossil and vital, bewildering the conjec- 
 tures of scientific sojourners at Gibraltar ; — and 
 poor John Egerton, who experienced more 
 emotion in meeting again the lady of his boyish 
 love than might have been expected of a cap- 
 tain in a marching regiment, casehardened by 
 the flirtations of half-a-dozen Irish countrv- 
 quarters, found his attention diverted from 
 Georgiana^s intelligent countenance, to answer 
 a series of cross questions concerning the under 
 currents of the Mediterranean and the optical 
 phenomena of the Straits of Messina. 
 
 " I am glad to hear that you are going there ; 
 your visit to the place may be productive of the 
 greatest benefit," was Georgiana's reply to 
 some remark addressed to her in an under-tone 
 by John Egerton, which the old Captain fancied 
 must bear reference to the subject he was himself 
 diffusely discussing, — the site of Homer's school.
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 243 
 
 " In order to prepare some little notice of it?'' 
 cried he. '* A paper for the transactions ? ' Cap- 
 tain Egerton's excursion to the Island of Scio,' 
 eh ? I am sorry, however, to find, my dear 
 young friend, that you are starting back again 
 to the Mediterranean so soon, — without having 
 so ipuch as dined at Eastwick, — without having 
 so much as seen Georgy's new conservatory !" 
 
 " Make yourself easy, my dear papa !" said 
 his daughter, " Captain Egerton is only going 
 as far as Helstone. He will be home on Mon- 
 day; and as he has three months' leave, will visit 
 my conservatory a hundred times, I hope, in 
 the course of the summer ; we could not afford ' 
 to let him off so easily. We have so few beaux 
 in this neighbourhood ! — And now Mr. Mitford 
 is away," added she, with a significant glance 
 towards Mary, which caused the colour to rise 
 into John Egerton's cheeks, " Captain Egerton 
 is a doubly valuable acquisition." 
 
 Mrs. Egerton, whose penetration in such 
 matters was not brightened even by the expe- 
 rience of having a pretty unmarried daughter 
 constantly before her eyes, was both surprised 
 
 M 2
 
 244 preferment; or, 
 
 and gratified by what she regarded as direct 
 encouragement held out to her son. 
 
 Captain Egerton, however, felt that he should 
 have been better pleased had Miss Heseltine 
 been less voluble in the avowal of her hopes. 
 The unreserve of her manner proved to him 
 beyond question that she had none of those 
 feelings to conceal of which he would fain have 
 had cause to believe her susceptible. He knew 
 that he had no pretext for disappointment; 
 that Georgiana had never given the smallest 
 countenance to his pretensions ; yet in spite of 
 himself, feelings of bitter mortification pursued 
 him that afternoon in his ride across the coun- 
 try to Helstone. He took no heed of the beauty 
 of the landscape; he noted not the favourite 
 spots which had been dear to him in boyhood, 
 and which in distant climates he had so often 
 and fondly recalled to mind. The sweeping 
 woodlands and picturesque hop-gardens of that 
 rich and fertile district passed unnoticed before 
 his eyes. 
 
 In the cheerlessness of foreign stations, it had 
 been his favourite solace to summon Eastwick
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 245 
 
 and Hurley before his mind's eye; — sometimes, 
 as the Eastwick and Hurley of his earlier 
 years, — sometimes, as the Eastwick and Hurley 
 of the passing time, — sometimes, as the Eastwick 
 and Hurley of a remote future. But of each 
 of these ideal pictures Georgiana formed the 
 prominent feature; and above all, in the shadowy 
 perspective of days to come, he had occasionally 
 permitted his fancy to depict the youthful 
 heiress metamorphosed into a Mrs. Colonel 
 Egerton, surrounded by little Williams, Johns, 
 and Juliuses, for whom their grandfather, the 
 eccentric Captain, was sailing frigates or launch- 
 ing rafts upon the Eastwick reservoir ! 
 
 But it was all over now ! — He should never 
 again dream of her as anything but Miss Hesel- 
 tine, or rather should never dream of her at all. 
 The freedom of her manner convinced him that 
 she had formed a decided attachment. What 
 mattered it that Philip Mitford should have been 
 refused, when every season Tunbridge Wells 
 supplied hosts of loungers, accepted as visitors 
 by old Heseltine, as if expressly that his daughter 
 might fix among them upon her future husband?
 
 246 preferment; or, 
 
 The hateful consequences of living near a water- 
 ing-place ! — Had Eastwick been situated in some 
 quiet, respectable neighbourhood, Georgiana 
 would necessarily have been reduced by want of 
 competition, to fall in love with one of the 
 brothers of her fair friend at Hurley House. 
 
 Such were the young soldier's reflections as 
 he spurred his horse along the green lanes and 
 by-roads, affording a nearer access to Helstone ; 
 through which, in spite of the preoccupation of 
 his mind, instinct guided him safely and accu- 
 rately towards the place from which he had 
 been now more than four years absent. 
 
 At a turn of the road, however, which brought 
 him almost within view of the village, the 
 spirits into which he had been gradually 
 cheered by a pleasant ride in fine weather across 
 a fine country became subdued by the emotions 
 inevitably connected with the haunts of child- 
 hood. Though Helstone had never been his 
 home as it had been that of Julius, it was the 
 place where he was taken every holidays to be 
 reviewed, interrogated, and blessed by his 
 grandfather, and examined, questioned, and
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 247 
 
 scolded by his aunt, even long after, as a smart 
 Wintonian, his sense of dignity was sorely 
 wounded by the process. 
 
 But it was not on this account that his 
 feelings were irresistibly stirred on catching 
 sight of the village spire. The early infirmities 
 of Julius having necessitated the separation of 
 the brothers, it was there that, twice or thrice 
 a-year, they were annually re-united ; nor had 
 John outlived the remembrance of the feelings 
 of delight with which of old he used to approach 
 the place where a boyish embrace was to fling 
 around his neck the arms of one who was a 
 friend and playmate to him, yet so much more 
 than either. 
 
 He recalled to mind the fine animated coun- 
 tenance of Julius, with the auburn curls cluster- 
 ing round his open throat. He remembered his 
 brother's generous eagerness to share with him 
 his boyish property at Helstone, — his pets, his 
 garden, the use of his pony, the perusal of his 
 beloved Arabian Nights. He remembered the 
 truant days, when, leaving the old doctor to his 
 school-room, and aunt Rachel to her dispensary,
 
 248 preferment; or, 
 
 they used to escape and pass a day in the woods ; 
 — prattling over days to come, when John was 
 to be a field marshal, and Julius, a prime minis- 
 ter, providing succours and auxiliaries for his 
 armies; or, at a later period, when John was to 
 be a country gentleman, and happy husband, 
 sunning himself in the smiles of Georgiana He- 
 seltine, and Julius a popular poet, sunning him- 
 self in the smiles of the universe. 
 
 And now, he was come again, and about to 
 throw himself once more into the arms of that 
 beloved brother, — that friend of his own sex 
 and age, so much nearer to him than any other 
 member of his family ; — and how few of their 
 boyish visions were at present realized ! — Except 
 that John wore a red coat, and Julius a black, 
 nothing had turned out according to their ex- 
 pectations ; for though the talents of Julius were 
 recognised as first-rate, he was still only a poor 
 curate ; while John, though his professional zeal 
 was rewarded with tolerable advancement, felt 
 that his chance of retiring into a country gen- 
 tleman, as the husband of Georgy Heseltine, was 
 about as apocryphal as his brother's of becoming
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 249 
 
 Archbishop of Canterbury. As yet, they had 
 done nothing for themselves. They had not at 
 present progressed a step beyond the condition 
 to which they were born, as sons of the Honour- 
 able William Egerton. 
 
 Insensibly, a feeling of mortification was 
 gaining ground in the mind of the gay young 
 soldier, as he entered what was called the High 
 Street of Helstone ; that is, the scattered double 
 line of old-fashioned, heavy-browed, brick cot- 
 tages, each with its little garden, which led 
 through the village towards the church and its 
 adjoining parsonage. But in a moment John 
 Egerton's spirits were revived. The place 
 looked more orderly, more cheerful, more credit- 
 able than of old. Situated at a hundred miles 
 distance from the family-seat of its aristocratic 
 proprietor, the destinies of the parish were chiefly 
 influenced by the resident clergyman; and, under 
 the undivided rule of old Dr. Spry, (whose 
 thoughts were engrossed by his pupils and his af- 
 fections set upon the favour of their noble 
 parents,) the village had been suffered to follow its 
 own devices, and return to its wallowing in the 
 
 M 3
 
 250 preferment; or, 
 
 mire. Unreclaimed by the ministry of an active 
 priestj its men had become drunkards, its women 
 slatterns, its vestry litigious, its roads indifferent, 
 and its credit bad. 
 
 But, at a single glance, John discerned that a 
 great portion of these evils was reformed. The 
 countenances of the people who saluted him 
 civilly but not servilely as he went by, were 
 healthy and happy. The gardens were trimly, — 
 a vine or pear tree was carefully trained against 
 the gable of every house. The road was mended 
 and skirted by a raised causeway ; the poor- 
 house whitewashed, and its old-fashioned case- 
 ments replaced by wider windows, with the dial 
 and its quaint inscription carefully replaced over 
 the entrance. It was impossible not to be struck 
 by the altered aspect of the village, — altered 
 without losing a jot of its picturesque character- 
 istics of the olden time. 
 
 " If this be my brother's work," mused John, 
 as he proceeded, " Julius is a greater man than 
 if he had fulfilled his intentions of shining as a 
 popular poet !" 
 
 At that moment, there appeared on the road
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. . 251 
 
 before him, engaged in conversation with two 
 labourers who were trudging by his side in an 
 attitude of more familiarity than reverence, the 
 tall figure of an individual whom he could not 
 doubt to be his brother. 
 
 But instead of pushing onwards to overtake 
 him, Captain Egerton was overcome by emotion. 
 His first impulse was to check his horse, in ad- 
 miration of the manly gait which the exercises of 
 a frugal country life had imparted to the once 
 slender form of Julius. He now trod the earth 
 with head erect and animated gestures. Small 
 and well-turned as was his head and elegant his 
 countenance, the thresher with whom he was 
 conversing scarcely boasted greater strength of 
 limb than the young pastor. 
 
 As Captain Egerton dashed on after this mo- 
 mentary pause, he could not forbear muttering 
 a word or two expressive of regret that so fine a 
 fellow had not been fated to become a soldier ! —
 
 252 PREFERMENT OR, 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Who were below him, 
 He used as creatures of another place ; 
 And bow'd his eminent head to their low rank, 
 Making them proud of his humility. — Shakspeare. 
 
 The meeting between the brothers was an af- 
 fecting one. Though nothing further passed 
 between them than the national ceremony of 
 hand shaking, the mellow voice of Julius faltered 
 as he addressed an ordinary form of welcome to 
 one whose long absence had given him many 
 painful and longing moments. From perils by 
 land and sea, — of climate and of service, — he 
 addressed his secret thanks to heaven for having 
 preserved his brother; and could scarcely for- 
 bear expressing to John aloud, those com pi i-
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 253 
 
 ments on his matured personal appearance, 
 which, as regarding himself, were passing through 
 the mind of his brother. 
 
 When all the tiresome preliminaries had been 
 submitted to, of replying to aunt Rachel's mani- 
 fold questions, and paying a dutiful visit to the 
 nursery of the old doctor's second childhood, it 
 was a joyful moment to the two young men to 
 find themselves seated side by side, secure from 
 intrusion ; interchanging confidences concerning 
 all that had occurred to either since their parting; 
 and, as of old, forming projects of future happi- 
 ness. 
 
 Yet even thus early in their re-union, an in- 
 stinctive suspicion beset John Egerton that, 
 while he was avowing all to his brother, Julius 
 was not avowing all to him. During a whole 
 evening and an hour or two of the night, spent 
 in relating his regimental triumphs and griev- 
 ances, his plans for achieving staff promotion, 
 his financial dilemmas, his affairs of love and 
 glory, he had obtained little more than gene- 
 ralities in return. 
 
 " And now, my dear fellow, a word or two of
 
 254 preferment; or, 
 
 yourself !'' cried he, on coming to the close of 
 his list of delicate and indelicate distresses. 
 
 *^ My letters have related all the particulars 
 of my unincidental life," replied Julius, with a 
 sigh. " I am not so fortunate as to have any- 
 thing to tell too confidential for the post. 
 Parish drudgery and solitary study fill up the 
 measure of my days ; and as to my disasters, 
 instead of having events to unfold so startling as 
 your Gibraltar adventure with the wife of the 
 Spanish general," resumed he with a smile, 
 " my most heroic feat consists in a squabble 
 with my churchwardens. I cannot insult your 
 understanding by supposing j^ou could interest 
 yourself in the roughs and smooths of my daily 
 life with aunt Rachel." 
 
 " I can conceive that she must be the devil of 
 a plague," cried John, not choosing to remon- 
 strate against the measured nature of his 
 brother's trust. " But of course you do not 
 allow her to interfere too far with you ?" 
 
 " I began life with a pecuniary obligation to 
 her, which, thank Heaven, a literary engage- 
 ment soon enabled me to shake off. But with the
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 255 
 
 professional life of her father's curate, I am not 
 able wholly to prevent her intermeddling. Poor 
 soul ! her chief offence arises from pure good- 
 will. She is always wanting to marry me to 
 your old flame. Miss Heseltine; and I am 
 actually prevented visiting Hurley so often as I 
 could wish, by the vexatious consequences of her 
 manoeuvres at Eastwick." 
 
 *' What consequences ?" demanded John, with 
 rising colour. " Am I to reckon among them 
 the young lady's easy indifference towards 
 myself? — Are you, after all, my dear fellow, the 
 happy man ?" — 
 
 *' I neither am nor desire to be. Miss Hesel- 
 tine suits me well enough as the friend of. my 
 sister, or even as my sister-in-law. But if my 
 circumstances enabled me to aspire to the hand 
 of an heiress, few people would less attract me 
 than the daughter of Captain Heseltine." 
 
 "You are more nice than wise," replied 
 John Egerton, pettishly. " Georgiana is a 
 charming girl." 
 
 " It is not as Georgiana, but as old Heseltine's 
 daughter that she inspires me with disgust. I
 
 256 preferment; or, 
 
 have lived long enough under this roof to have 
 imbibed a distaste for oddities ; and should 
 equally dislike Captain Hesel tine's eccentric 
 habits, and the vulgarity of his family con- 
 nexions.'' 
 
 '^ I fancied you righteous-over-much people 
 considered no class of men or manners vulgar ?" 
 — observed John. 
 
 " Were I indeed one of those whom you style 
 righteous over much, I might not perhaps be 
 so fastidious," replied his brother. " That I am 
 less virtuous than you suppose, is avouched 
 by the fact that I have never overcome the 
 influence of Tiverton Castle. The simple life 
 I lead is an enforced one : I still, alas ! feel a 
 hankering after the flesh-pots of Israel." 
 
 John Egerton was better pleased with his 
 brother afte^ this avowal; and on the morrow 
 he was compelled to admit that it was unne- 
 cessary for Julius to aspire to personal conse- 
 quence by assuming a virtue where he had it 
 not. The simple dignity of the young pastor 
 sufficed. As they sauntered together through 
 the village, no lip worship was addressed to him.
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 257 
 
 But it was clear to John that his brother was the 
 idol of Helstone : an object of affection to the 
 young, and veneration to the old. He was 
 greeted, not with obeisances, but with a smile. 
 He was consulted by his flock, not only con- 
 cerning things spiritual, but things temporal. 
 He was the friend of their fireside as well as the 
 pilot of their faith ; and Captain Egerton soon 
 secretly coincided with his sister Mary, that it 
 would require a highly advantageous prospect to 
 allure Julius from his living. 
 
 " I do not wonder at your contentment here,*' 
 cried he, as he visited with Julius, on his return 
 to the parsonage, the sunny flower beds he had 
 amused himself by forming, sloping towards a 
 brawling brook. " These people are all so strongly 
 attached to you." 
 
 '' My parishioners? — Yes ! — with the exception 
 of two captious churchwardens, I believe T stand 
 tolerably well with them. But it requires all 
 their regard and more to compensate my un- 
 popularity elsewhere. Not a clergyman in Kent 
 is more disliked than I am." 
 
 "*Envy doth merit like its shade pursue,'" 
 quoted John Egerton, laughingly.
 
 258 preferment; or, 
 
 "It is not my merit but my zeal they com- 
 plain of. Younger and more active than most 
 of my clerical neighbours, I am able to exert 
 myself more than it suits them to follow my ex- 
 ample. When I came to Helstone, I found my 
 vineyard full of thorns. My grandfather's in- 
 firmities had obliged him to neglect his living." 
 
 " His injirmities T^ reiterated John. '' You 
 mean his interests. How was the old fellow to 
 attend to his parishioners and his pupils at the 
 same time ?" 
 
 '' I fear he troubled himself little about either. 
 At all events, when I accepted the curacy, the 
 parish was divided into two dissenting congrega- 
 tions, and an empty church. There was but one 
 remedy. The Wesleyan and the Calvinist mi- 
 nisters had effected everything by eloquence and 
 zeal. I fought them with their own weapons. 
 I opened the church for week-day service, gave 
 them evening lectures in opposition to those they 
 were in the habit of attending, and three services 
 every Sunday. That my system prospers is 
 attested by the departure of the Calvinist mi- 
 nister, and the decay of the Wesleyan chapel. 
 But it has estranged from me the friendship of
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 259 
 
 many whose regard I prized till it was withdrawn 
 on such provocation ; — gentlemen and scholars, 
 but not truly Christians, or they would not have 
 ascribed to an ambitious vanity the labours which 
 were purely conscientious." 
 
 " Do you recollect in Kean's life, the account 
 of the contempts heaped upon him by his 
 brother actors for attempting to infuse spirit 
 into some insignificant w^alking gentleman's 
 part ? * The little man,' they cried, ' wants to 
 make a part of it !' — Depend upon it, this is ex- 
 actly what is said by the bigwigs of the curate 
 of Helstone." 
 
 " Happily, the curate of Helstone is both 
 above and beneath their taunts/' said Julius. 
 " We see no company here, on account of Dr. 
 Spry's infirmities ; and for the last two years I 
 have not dined out of the parsonage." 
 
 '* So much the worse, my dear fellow," cried 
 John. " Nature never intended you for a 
 hermit; at your age, and qualified to adorn 
 society, the thing is unreasonable. As Miss 
 Heseltine was saying yesterday, you will im- 
 mure yourself in this wretched village, with
 
 260 preferment; or, 
 
 aunt Rachel as the fugleman of your idola- 
 ters, till you become one of the least, and 
 fancy yourself one of the greatest, of God's 
 creatures." 
 
 '' Miss Hesel tine's name is a panoply under 
 which you are privileged to utter ungracious 
 things !" observed Julius, somewhat vexed. 
 *' But notwithstanding the young lady's stric- 
 tures, be assured that, however small, I do not 
 exaggerate my importance. She cannot forgive 
 my having declined to join a party at Eastwick, 
 when passing a day or two at Hurley last 
 summer, which she considered of the utmost 
 consequence, but to which I preferred a quiet 
 game of chess with my father. It struck Miss 
 Heseltine as extraordinary that any living mortal 
 should resist so grand a temptation as the society 
 of the Mitfords of Mitford !" 
 
 " Oh, the Mitfords were there !" rejoined 
 John Egerton, carelessly. " Before Philip was 
 refused, I suppose?" 
 
 " Refused 9 — I do not believe he ever pro- 
 posed — if you mean for Georgiana Heseltine. 
 On the contrary, I fancy he is as much in love
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 261 
 
 with Mary as so fine a gentleman can allow 
 himself to be." 
 
 '' With our sister Mary ?" 
 
 She is happily unconscious of it, for he pays 
 her no particular attention, — so well aware is he 
 that such a match would not obtain the approba- 
 tion of his family." 
 
 "You are certain that he has paid her no 
 particular attention, — that he is in no way 
 trifling with her affections ?" — demanded the 
 Captain, who had long cherished a jealous 
 grudge against Philip Mitford, to which it 
 would have been delightful to him to give 
 vent. 
 
 " Perfectly certain ; and unless it be through 
 some indiscretion of yours, Mary, who is the most 
 diffident, unassuming girl on earth, will never 
 entertain a suspicion of his admiration." 
 
 '' On what account, then, did you decline 
 meeting the Mitfords ?" 
 
 " Simply because they are dull, pompous 
 people, in whose society I experience neither 
 honour nor pleasure. Moreover, they came 
 over a large party from Mitford Hall, to spend
 
 262 preferment; or, 
 
 the race week at Tunbridge Wells, in which 
 was included a person whom I systematically 
 avoid, — our cousin, Dick Egerton." 
 
 " Whom you systematically avoic? .^ — See how 
 thoroughly a man may be in the basket after 
 passing a few years out of England ! — I fancied 
 you partial to Egerton. Surely you were col- 
 lege chums, or something of that sort ?" — 
 
 " I was partial to him, I am ashamed to say 
 how much I liked him ! — I once imagined that, 
 in addition to his agreeable tone and manners, 
 he possessed an ardent elevated mind, — that he 
 was above his caste, — superior to his position. 
 But I was mistaken ! The moment I perceived 
 that he was afraid of compromising himself by 
 an intimacy with his father's brother's son be- 
 cause a rustic, I gave him up." 
 
 " But why not write me word of your 
 quarrel ?" 
 
 " There was none to write about. Were 
 Egerton and I to meet accidentally, I should 
 extend my hand to him, if not as cordially, at 
 least as civilly as ever. But I would not 
 voluntarily go to meet him."
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 263 
 
 «' You were right. He called upon you, I 
 suppose, in the course of his stay ?" 
 
 '' Only on ascertaining that Hurley House 
 was a place not under the ban of such people as 
 the Mitfords. It was not till after the dinner at 
 Eastwick he had the grace to leave a card for 
 my father." 
 
 "I trust in God my father did not return 
 it ?"— 
 
 '^ You know his excellent nature. The 
 moment he found Egerton was at the Wells, he 
 did not rest till he had draffcfed him all over his 
 fields, and shewn him his plantation of Indian 
 corn. Imagine the martyrdom I was suffering 
 all the time." 
 
 '* At least the fine gentleman betrayed no 
 symptoms of sauciness ?" — cried the young sol- 
 dier, reddening. " You did not observe him 
 disposed to quiz the thing ?" — 
 
 " No, no, — my studied coolness keeps him 
 somewhat in awe. But to say the truth, I never 
 saw even the most impertinent fellow^ disposed to 
 quiz my father. There is something so genuine 
 in his frankness and good-humour that, even
 
 264 preferment; or, 
 
 unbacked by worldly advantages, it commands 
 respect. Dick Egerton behaved with perfect 
 propriety, — won the hearts of Mary and my mo- 
 ther by seizing or making opportunities of 
 praising me, — and almost won mine by resisting 
 mv father's invitation to dinner. For worlds I 
 would not have had him dine at Hurley !" — 
 
 " You seem to attach vast importance to this 
 young gentleman,'' cried Captain Egerton, 
 somewhat piqued. " After all, people of greater 
 consequence than my uncle Tiverton's younger 
 son have dined with my father, and without any 
 great derogation." 
 
 '* You speak of him as my uncle Tiverton's 
 younger son ; I, as Dick Egerton, — as ' Dicky 
 Edge,' — as a man who at six-and-twenty has 
 created for himself a position in the world." 
 
 "A further proof how completely colonial 
 life places one in the basket ! — I was unaware 
 he had done anything to distinguish himself. 
 Beyond a tolerable speech or two in parliament, 
 I knew not that he had even attempted it." 
 
 " For a young member of his rank and ap- 
 pearance to have made two or three tolerable
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 265 
 
 speeches is a great thing. The political world 
 is always on the look-out for recruits of that 
 description. Ministers are glad to refresh their 
 party and illustrate the Order at the same time. 
 But I was not alluding to his political promo- 
 tion, — Egerton's influence in society is the thing 
 that gives him consequence. In this secluded 
 place, as you may suppose, I know little of what 
 is passing in the world. ' But the loopholes of 
 retreat' are open to every man's gazing ; and I 
 have reason to know, from Mitford and others, 
 that Egerton has attained that sort o^ ignis fatuus 
 brilliancy the result of a species of malaria, 
 generated by the fashionable quarters of Lon- 
 don, — the mere phosphorescence of corruption." 
 
 " Much good may it do him ! Well, we are 
 not likely to come in contact, so that my self- 
 love will remain unwounded," observed John. 
 *' And pray what did Georgiana Heseltine think 
 of this new branch of the Egerton family ?" 
 
 "The Miss Mitfords were too proud of having 
 such a paragon among them to let her catch 
 more than a glimpse of him ! — Handsome and 
 agreeable she could not fail to think him." 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 266 preferment; or, 
 
 " Surely not the puppy you describe ?" 
 
 " I am not aware of having described him as 
 a puppy, — his self-conceit is of too subtle a 
 nature to be ostensible. Egerton's dress and 
 manners are studiedly simple." 
 
 '' Then you think Miss Heseltine did admire 
 him ?" again anxiously demanded John. 
 
 " To say the truth, I never thought about the 
 matter ; but unless she differ strangely from the 
 rest of her sex, she probably fell desperately in 
 love with him, and has thought all other men 
 atoms, from that day to this." 
 
 " Since you are jesting, I am satisfied," said 
 his brother, laughing as he took his candle to 
 retire to bed. " No doubt, jealousy makes an 
 ass of me as well as of the rest of the world ; but I 
 shall not be at ease till I have discovered my 
 successful rival at Eastwick." 
 
 Luckilv, John Eo^erton's soreness on the sub- 
 ject did not allow him to mention Georgiana 
 Heseltine's name on the morrow in presence of 
 aunt Rachel ; or she would instantly have pro- 
 claimed her ungrateful nephew, Julius, to be the 
 happy man ! She had long been convinced
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 267 
 
 that Julius's well-earned fame, furthered by her 
 own stratagems, had proved too much for the 
 young heiress; and that nothing but the con- 
 tempt entertained by the St. John of Helstone 
 for the treasures of this world prevented his 
 speaking the word and becoming son-in-law to 
 Captain Heseltine. 
 
 But having escaped the chance of enlighten- 
 ment from her lips, John Egerton was not 
 likely to derive it from personal observation. 
 Miss Heseltine, in most cases somewhat too 
 decided in the avowal of her opinions, seemed 
 to take particular delight in finding fault with 
 the conduct of Julius Egerton. Vexed by 
 seeing him held up as a pattern to the county, 
 and worshipped as an idol by his family, she 
 never failed to point out every speck and 
 blemish, real or imaginary, in his character or 
 conduct. Even Captain Egerton considered 
 her comments too severe, when, on his return 
 from his visit to Helstone, he communicated his 
 surprise at the vast influence exercised by his 
 brother. 
 
 '' Parmi les aveugles un horgne est roi /" said 
 
 N 2
 
 268 preferment; or, 
 
 she, as they strolled together along the East- 
 wick shrubberies. " These Helstone people had 
 been so long accustomed to the lukewarm doc- 
 trines of the mumbling old rector, that (like 
 Caliban, when he mistook the reeling Trinculo 
 for a god) they were ready to fall down and 
 worship the first man with half a grain of un- 
 derstanding, deputed to expound to them the 
 words of salvation. The country squires near 
 Helstone, you say, desert their parish churches 
 to hear him preach, — very likely ! Since the 
 days of Caesar's Commentaries, no one has been 
 civil enough to praise the intellectual progress 
 of the county of Kent ! — From the days of the 
 Holy Maid to those of Sir William Courtenay, 
 we have been apt to run wild after charlatans !" 
 
 " You wrong your taste in calling Julius a 
 charlatan," observed Captain Egerton, almost 
 angrily. " The strength of his preaching lies in 
 its simplicity." 
 
 " So does that of Stone Henge, which does 
 not prove it to be the altar of the true faith ; how- 
 ever, if you please, he shall not be a charlatan, — 
 he shall be the dupe of his own imagination.
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 269 
 
 But either in the one capacity or the other, 
 were he placed in London, Dublin, Edinburgh, 
 Oxford, Cambridge, instead of poor, impotent, 
 half-witted Helstone, you would hear no more 
 of Mr. Egerton's inspired preaching ! He 
 would be at best a promising young man. If 
 he produced anything like an effect on the 
 mind of society, it would be because he was the 
 nephew of an earl.'' 
 
 " Admit, at least, that Julius took a remark- 
 able degree !" exclaimed John Egerton. " His 
 being nephew of an earl had nothing to do with 
 that?" 
 
 " I never affected to consider him a dunce ; 
 he took a very remarkable degree, and in 
 nothing more remarkable than the little import- 
 ance it gave him in the university. He slunk 
 away from college, not as if too modest to enjoy 
 his honours, but as if too awkward to turn them 
 to account." 
 
 "Who told you so, — (for you, I imagine, 
 were not of Trinity ?)" — cried Egerton. " You 
 can only speak from hearsay." 
 
 " I speak from the report of one very near to
 
 270 preferment; or, 
 
 him in blood and friendship," replied Miss 
 Heseltine, unhesitatingly, — not being aware 
 that the Captain, already apprized of Dick 
 Egerton's visit to Eastwick, was able at once to 
 trace her intelligence to its source. " He who, 
 possessing such capabilities as your brother, is 
 unable to turn them to account, sinks in my 
 mind below the blockhead who is naturally defi- 
 cient." 
 
 " A man can but distinguish himself in his 
 allotted sphere," remonstrated John. " Julius 
 was destined to be curate of Helstone, and as 
 curate of Helstone he is as much honoured as 
 curate can be." 
 
 '* Were he the great genius that you and 
 aunt Rachel would fain coax him into believing 
 himself, he would not be curate of Helstone !" 
 replied Miss Heseltine, calmly ; "he would 
 have placed himself in a higher sphere. Instead 
 of devoting his youth to converting crazy old 
 men and lazy old women, who hunger after the 
 parsonage tracts because they are accompanied 
 by the parsonage broth and blankets, he would 
 have adhered to the university."
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 271 
 
 " You blame him, in short, for making himself 
 useful in his generation, instead of aspiring to 
 become a shining light ? — I can give you, how- 
 ever, an explanation of his conduct, which has 
 escaped the knowledge of your friendly in- 
 formant, Mr. Egerton.'* 
 
 « Mr. Egerton ?"— 
 
 " I am aware of my cousin's visit here, and 
 Julius equally so of his treacherous dispositions. 
 The circumstance. Miss Heseltine, which made 
 a residence at Cambridge disagreeable to my 
 brother, was pecuniary difficulty. In the society 
 of Dick Eger ton's fashionable friends, he 
 incurred boyish debts, which his acceptance of 
 the curacy of Helstone enabled him to discharge 
 without inconveniencing his family." 
 
 " Dehts f — reiterated Miss Heseltine, with 
 flushing cheeks, deeply mortified at having 
 drawn forth this painful admission from the 
 brother of Julius. "And that I should never 
 have suspected it, when I noticed his reluctance 
 to return to Cambridge ! — How stupid, how un- 
 observant ! — When my father would have taken 
 such pleasure in releasing him without those
 
 272 preferment; or, 
 
 fatal conditions which I conclude were imposed 
 by the Sprys for their own accommodation. 
 Chain himself down to the obscurity of Hel- 
 stone for a few paltry hundreds !" — 
 
 " From his grandfather, Julius could receive 
 without humiliation an advance which, with 
 Captain Heseltine, must have placed him in the 
 light of an unjustifiable borrower." 
 
 " Nonsense, nonsense ! — Had Julius half the 
 greatness of mind for which you give him credit, 
 he would have felt on such an occasion that he 
 was turning to honourable account a sum lying 
 useless in the hands of a man who loves him 
 like a father. He is well aware that my father 
 has more money than he knows what to do 
 with ; — that, saving myself, he has no one on 
 whom to enjoy the pleasure of throwing it 
 away ; — yet he grudged him the golden oppor- 
 tunity of being useful to a friend's son, 
 thwarted in his career of distinction by the want 
 of a miserable five hundred pounds !" — 
 
 And Miss Heseltine, having apparently 
 talked herself into a passion, walked on, swell- 
 ing and impatient; while Captain Egerton re-
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 273 
 
 garded with surprise this betrayal of interest in 
 favour of one of whom she never spoke but in 
 discommendation. In deference to her petu- 
 lance, he determined to change the subject, and 
 when he spoke again, it was with reference to 
 some piece of gossip current at the Wells. 
 But Miss Heseltine instantly brought him back 
 to Helstone. 
 
 " Granting," said she, " that your brother 
 had no choice in accepting his grandfather's 
 curacy, his conduct there is certainly voluntary. 
 It is not to pay his college debts that he refuses 
 to dine at Helstone Park, and wastes his time in 
 playing the Cicero with his vestry. 
 
 " I make so poor a champion against the at- 
 tack of so fair an antagonist," replied John 
 Egerton, gallantly, '' that you must be generous, 
 and allow me to lay down my arms. Julius is an 
 enthusiast, — a rare character in these unroman- 
 tic times, when all elevation is condemned as 
 useless to the community. Some day or other, 
 perhaps, he may become a convert to your 
 opinions, and a worshipper of the positive. 
 May I live to see him win your good graces as 
 
 N 3
 
 274 PREFERMENT ; OR, 
 
 a fat and comely dean, a frequenter of levees, 
 and parasite of archbishops !" 
 
 *' God forbid!" was Georgiana's scarcely audi- 
 ble rejoinder, "or he would forfeit the charm 
 which at present so marvellously distinguishes 
 him from the rest of his species."
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 275 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Honour ! thou spongy idol of man's mind 
 That soak'st away content ! — Sir P, Sidney. 
 
 The Mitfords of Mitford Hall deserve more 
 than incidental mention ; — being people of vast » 
 importance in their own estimation, and of some 
 importance in that of their county. 
 
 The family had been settled on the estate from 
 which they derived their name from the troublous 
 times of that *' worthy peer," King Stephen ; 
 and though its landmarks had never been ex- 
 tended by the exercise of either their industry 
 or their ingenuity, they had not been contracted 
 by vice or improvidence. It was something to 
 have remained Mitford of Mitford ; and though
 
 276 preferment; or, 
 
 not quite so great a distinction as Mitford of 
 Mitford thought it, the hereditary landed pro- 
 prietor received due honour from all the editors 
 of county histories, to whom he had forwarded 
 a sufficient subscription. He was usually de- 
 fined as the most ancient commoner in the shire. 
 
 Georgiana Heseltine, and one or two 
 equally plain speakers, was sometimes heard 
 to say that there was little distinction in not 
 having been made a peer, for one whose for- 
 tune did not enable him to support the dig- 
 nity, and the feats of whose family by sea or 
 land had never caused it to be thrust upon 
 them by the pleasure of parliament. Still, Mit- 
 ford of Mitford was as proud of being so de- 
 fined, as if he had flung back into the hands of 
 ministers, or the face of royalty, some bran-new 
 coronet and supporters. 
 
 The family, in fine, was what is called " a 
 county family.'' Whatever certain gentry of 
 Saxon derivation might insinuate about the 
 Mitfords having only come over with the Con- 
 queror, Norman adventurers, (whose original 
 name of Muidfort was about as dignified as Pint-
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 277 
 
 pot or Quart-measure,) there had they abided 
 for seven centuries, honourably commemorated 
 in corporation archives, dwellers upon their 
 own land, and sitters under their own vine. 
 
 Georgiana Heseltine and her flippant mates 
 were sometimes tempted to add a further in- 
 quiry of, " Pray what were these loyal people 
 doing during the civil wars, that history records 
 nothing of their services ? — How comes it that 
 among the grim-looking Richard and Philip 
 Mitfords of Mitford, whose portraits, lacking a 
 picture-gallery at the Hall, renders its old- 
 fashioned dining-room and bed-rooms still more 
 gloomy, we find no instance of knightly spur or 
 judicial robe?" — " Probably," it might have been 
 answered, "because the competence of the family 
 was just such as to repress its energies ; — because 
 it boasted as its chief no estated earl to com- 
 mand the rewards of government, and no un- 
 thrifty honourable younger sons compelled to 
 exercise tiieir faculties for the retainment of 
 their position in society." As the head of the 
 house thought it sufficient to be Mitford of 
 Mitford, the younger branches sank easily into 
 utter insignificance.
 
 278 preferment; or, 
 
 Such was the social position which, every 
 dozen years or so, caused Mitford of Mitford to 
 be pricked for sheriff; and which intitled his 
 wife and daughters, in the interim, to take their 
 places amongst the thrones and dominions of 
 the county in public meetings, race-stands, 
 election balls, and similar gatherings together of 
 the clean and unclean. Countless intermar- 
 riages connected them with the most ancient 
 families of Kent and Sussex. They were part 
 of a system ; — a link in the great chain of landed 
 proprietorship. 
 
 All this did well enough in former centuries, 
 when difficulty of communication rendered 
 London an impossible place for those who had 
 neither thousands to throw away, nor constituents 
 to serve. But, lo ! when the era of road- 
 making brought Mitford Hall within a day's 
 easy journey of the metropolis, the young ladies 
 of the family began to aspire beyond the neigh- 
 bouring country squires, and insisted every spring 
 upon a month or two in town. Why were they 
 to be the only damsels of their degree who had 
 never heard an opera or an oratorio, never smiled 
 in the Mall, nor fanned themselves at Ranelagh ?
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 279 
 
 They chose to figure in the world as the Misses 
 Mitford of Mitford. 
 
 Sick of town-halls and race-stands, they would 
 fain be presented at court. What mattered 
 village curtseys or provincial bows, when the 
 homage of side-boxes and the ring was essen- 
 tial to the happiness of their age and sex ? — And 
 accordingly, when, on occasion of George the 
 Third's coronation, the Mrs. Mitford of that 
 generation saw fit to present her two ungraceful, 
 untutored daughters in the gay court of the 
 youthful Queen Charlotte, she had the morti- 
 fication of discovering that there were few peo- 
 ple of less account in the eyes of those of whom 
 she fancied herself the equal, than the Mitfords 
 of Mitford Hall. 
 
 From that moment the existence of the family 
 became an uneasy one. Disappointment of 
 distinctions to which they had unsuccessfully 
 pretended, rendered them dissatisfied with those 
 they had hitherto enjoyed. The country which 
 valued them, they despised ; — the town which 
 despised them, they valued. The young ladies 
 refused their countenance to squires and par- 
 sons, just as lords and members of parliament
 
 280 preferment; or, 
 
 refused all countenance to them ; and having 
 failed even at Bath to pick up so much as a 
 gouty Irish baronet, they retired once more to 
 Mitford Hall, to hide the discomfiture of their 
 pinched faces ; bequeathing, at their death, 
 their portions of five thousand pounds to their 
 elder brother, as a mite towards retrieving 
 the ignominy of the family by some noble al- 
 liance. 
 
 The gentleman did his best to fulfil their in- 
 tentions. As there vi^as nothing Honourable 
 or Right Honourable within reach, by inter- 
 marriage with which the next generation of 
 Miss Mitfords might be entitled to take the 
 same precedency in London they had hitherto 
 enjoyed in the country, he contented himself 
 with the hard-featured daughter of a hard- 
 headed baronet of a neighbouring county ; and 
 became the father of the present hard-hearted 
 generation, rejoicing in the designation of Mit- 
 fords of Mitford. 
 
 The offspring of this alliance, the reigning re- 
 presentative of the family, had married early, — 
 married in the course of his grand tour ; — the 
 rich travelling appointments lavished on an only
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 281 
 
 son having tempted the daughter of Sir Har- 
 bottle Scamp, a broken-down roue of the Prince 
 of Wales's set, retrenching at Florence, to fancy 
 that she was making a match in entangling the 
 affections of a youth who, when his father died of 
 vexation a few months afterwards, did not succeed 
 to more than two thousand a-year. Sir Harbottle, 
 of course, hinted that such an income was beggary 
 in England ; that his son-in-law could enjoy no 
 French cook, no four-in-hand, no opera-box, 
 nor any one of the luxuries of life; and though 
 on settling at Mitford Hall, under the wing of 
 her husband's mother, to whom the estate was 
 bequeathed for life, she was gradually persuaded , 
 by the arguments of Mrs. Mitford, sen., to 
 admit that the local importance of the family 
 was not without its triumphs, the ambitious 
 daughter-in-law transferring her own baffled 
 hopes to the destinies of her offspring, deter- 
 mined that little Philip and his sisters should 
 create, at some future time, a higher level for 
 the family of Mitford of Mitford. 
 
 In pursuance of these views were her sons and 
 daughters brought up. The Mitfords, who en-
 
 282 preferment; or, 
 
 tertained such exceeding horror of parvenus^ 
 placed all their expectations in seeing their 
 children parvenir ; — regardless that a Miss Mit- 
 ford had as little title to be a duchess, as the 
 daughter of the curate of the parish to match 
 with their son. But they were privileged peo- 
 ple. There was no rank or degree to which 
 they might not pretend, without being branded 
 with presumption. 
 
 Fortunately for the views of the Mitfords, 
 the children born to them were precisely of a 
 nature to forward their views. The girls were 
 cold, handsome, inanimate creatures ; while the 
 only son was a shrewd, calculating fellow, richly 
 endowed with that available species of talent 
 called esprit de societe. In tact and self-posses- 
 sion he already outshone his father and mother. 
 
 The ambition of Mr. Mitford, indeed, was 
 of a milder kind than that of his wife. In 
 Italy, in addition to contracting a foolish mar- 
 riage, he had contracted an almost equally 
 foolish pretence to dilettante-ism ; which, as his 
 fortune admitted not of its indulgence on his 
 own account, he could only gratify by living in
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 283 
 
 the society of the great, and enjoying the fine 
 arts at their expense. But he had no projects 
 for his offspring; no plans for getting Phib'p 
 married to an heiress, shoved into parliament, 
 or eventually promoted to a peerage. His 
 notions of a season in town consisted in dininor 
 vfiih the Royal Academicians, — assisting the 
 committee of taste of the British gallery, — being 
 admitted to the private view of all the exhibi- 
 tions, — and receiving letters of solicitation from 
 Christie and Phillips concerning the hanging 
 of their pictures, and the disposal of their 
 sculpture. He prided himself on passing for 
 one of the most fastidious judges in England of 
 works which, being unable to purchase, it was 
 some consolation to disparage. 
 
 Mrs. Mitford overlooked this w^eakness, for it 
 was one consistent with the habits of the best 
 society. As there was nothing in the deport- 
 ment of her good-looking. Well-mannered 
 husband to provoke the ridicule or disgust of 
 the fashionable young men attracted to her 
 house by her promising son, on his emancipation 
 from Eton and Oxford, she was content.
 
 284 preferment; or, 
 
 Philip, meanwhile, as she was never weary 
 of repeating, had grown up everything that the 
 fondest parent's heart could wish, — handsome, 
 clever, accomplished. 
 
 Sympathy of tastes and pursuits had begotten 
 an Eton chumship between him and Lord 
 Tiverton's younger son ; — Dick Egerton delight- 
 ing in Philip Mitford as *' a very gentlemanly 
 fellow," — that is, as clever, insolent, and smart ; 
 and Philip Mitford delighting in Dick Egerton, 
 as the son of a peer. On Philip's first appear- 
 ance about town, the dowager dandy, old Adol- 
 phus, had honoured him with his imprimatur of 
 acquaintanceship; and Mrs. Mitford's leading 
 ambition was accomplished in seeing her son 
 adopted at sight as worthy the confraternity of 
 the biases of supreme bon ton, — an instance of 
 almost unparalleled success in a young man of 
 two-and-twenty, belonging to neither of the 
 twin aristocracies of rank and wealth ! 
 
 Flattered as she was, however, by a distinction 
 which not only enrolled her son in the best clubs, 
 but which, par contre-coup, reflected credit on 
 her handsome daughters, as sisters of the fashion-
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 285 
 
 able Philip Mitford, it served to discompose 
 certain of her earlier plans for his advancement 
 in life. During his schoolboy days, it had oc- 
 curred to her that London itself could not pro- 
 vide a more advantageous match than the heiress 
 of Eastwick ; on which temptation, she had 
 made overtures of civility to Georgiana's father, 
 and occasionally invited the young lady to 
 spend a few days at Mitford in the course of 
 Philip's holidays. 
 
 But now that Philip, thus early in his career, 
 had taken so bold a flight, she almost began to 
 repent her precipitancy. Launched as he was, 
 Georgiana was scarcely a fitting partner for the 
 circles into which he had achieved admittance. 
 Low connexions, and the abruptness of her 
 manners, were alike against her ; and the indo- 
 cile independence of her character admitted of 
 no hope that she would submit to reform her 
 deportment, after the model of her calm, well- 
 bred sisters-in-law. 
 
 It was provoking enough to Mrs. Mitford to 
 reflect on the time and courtesy she had 
 wasted to conciliate these Heseltines. Philip,
 
 286 preferment; or, 
 
 with his personal advantages, might certainly 
 make a better match. He had been passing 
 Christmas at Tiverton Castle with Lady East- 
 hampton and her two daughters, each of whom 
 was to inherit eighty thousand pounds ; and he 
 was stated by the newspapers to have led the 
 cotillon with the young Lady Howard de Vaux, 
 at the ball given to commemorate her coming 
 into the enjoyment of her estates. 
 
 Mrs. Mitford began to discover that Cap- 
 tain Heseltine's eccentricities were such as 
 might be tolerated in a Due de Brancas, but 
 ought to consign a retired East India captain 
 to a lunatic asylum ; but to throw off the 
 mask at once was impossible. Though Geor- 
 giana Heseltine had never testified much 
 gratitude for the polite notice of the Miss 
 Mitfords, which their mother dignified with 
 the name . of friendship, she occasionally ac- 
 cepted their invitations as a relief from the mo- 
 notony of Eastwick ; and, as in hospitality 
 bound, had induced her father to make parties 
 for them in return, whenever the height of the 
 Tunbridge season afforded unusual attractions
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 287 
 
 to her secluded liome. To break through these 
 ties of intimate acquaintanceship without a pre- 
 text was out of the question. Mrs. Mitford 
 was too much a woman of the world to discard 
 at once a person honoured by her familiarity ; 
 and having determined to drop the Heseltines 
 gently^ and throw oif " her charming young 
 friend" by degrees, the Miss Mitfords were 
 instructed to refrain from their usual corre- 
 spondence with Eastwick during the ensuing 
 London season. 
 
 Though too well tutored to resist or remon- 
 strate, this was rather a mortification. Not that 
 they cared more for Georgiana Heseltine than 
 Georgiana for them ; but it was a solace to their 
 leisure to be secure of a stationary country cor- 
 respondent, to whose sympathy they could re- 
 late the number of their conquests, and describe 
 the trimmings of their ball-dresses, and the 
 rank of their partners. 
 
 Unobservant of their coolness, because indiffer- 
 ent to their advances, Miss Heseltine saw no rea- 
 son to object when, the autumn having brought 
 back the Miss Mitfords to Mitford, still the
 
 "288 preferment; or, 
 
 Miss Mitfords, and assigned to Tunbridge its 
 usual quantum of attractions, her father proposed 
 as usual to fill his house during the race-week ; 
 and first among the guests to be invited named 
 his neighbours of the Hall. 
 
 A polite answer arrived in due season, ex- 
 pressive of *' Mr. and Mrs. Mitford's regrets 
 that, as several young friends of their son were 
 staying in their house, they should be prevented 
 the pleasure of attending the races, and the 
 honour of spending a few days at Eastwick,'* — a 
 declaration which, to the Captain's unsophisti- 
 cated mind, sounded so like a hint for a more 
 extended invitation, that in spite of Georgiana's 
 entreaties, a second letter was despatched, in- 
 forming the Mitfords that the spare beds at 
 Eastwick amounted to thirteen ; and that Cap- 
 tain Heseltine, like the inimitable Mrs. Primrose, 
 insisted upon entertaining the whole party. 
 
 The letter having been read aloud at the 
 Mitfords' breakfast-table as an exquisite jest, 
 (the Captain's style and orthography being a 
 fac-simile of those of his favourite authors, Sir 
 John Mandeville, and Chardin, the traveller,)
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 289 
 
 Lord Storby and Dick Egerton, the guests in- 
 cluded in the invitation, entreated that it might 
 be accepted. Dick Egerton affected the live- 
 liest desire to be acquainted with so curious an 
 original as the inditer of such an epistle ; and 
 little did the Mitfords suspect that the proposal 
 originated in an understanding between him and 
 Storby, that " Mitford Hall being a deuced 
 slow place, — duller than they could have con- 
 ceived anything to be appertaining to their 
 friend Philip, — it might be as well to make out 
 the remainder of their visit by a move." Any 
 change must be for the better; — the worst of 
 race-grounds affords consolation to a sporting 
 man. 
 
 On arriving at Eastwick, however, the young 
 men were agreeably surprised by the beauty of 
 the place, and the total want of pretension ren- 
 dering it far superior to the abode they had 
 quitted. Comparing the attempts at Mitford 
 Hall with their own experience at Storby and 
 Tiverton Casde, they of course pronounced a 
 failure all that the Mitfords were straining their 
 utmost to effect ; while at Eastwick, where there 
 
 VOL. I. o
 
 290 preferment; or, 
 
 was no attempt at French cookery or French 
 wine, pages or a groom of the chambers, they 
 were perfectly content. 
 
 " This girl of the mad Captain's is really a 
 pleasant creature !" was Lord Storby's remark 
 to Philip Mitford, after the ladies had retired, on 
 the first evening of their visit to the Hesel tines. 
 
 '* Tolerable enough for a country miss. My 
 sisters have done what they could for her," 
 replied Philip, with an air of superiority. 
 
 " By God ! — I wonder you don't make up to 
 her, Phil?" cried Dick Egerton, drawing his 
 legs upon the sofa, on perceiving that his two 
 friends were the sole occupants of the drawing- 
 room. 
 
 '* Do you ? — I wonder you should wonder at 
 anything regarding so irregular a genius as 
 myself." 
 
 " You irregular !" cried Egerton, jealous of 
 having his privileges invaded. " I look upon 
 you as the most methodical individual of my 
 acquaintance." 
 
 ** Likely enough. Your acquaintance, I con- 
 ceive, does not lie among the most square-toed
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. t291 
 
 people in the world. Du reste, if you have any 
 fancy for Miss Heseltine, she is perfectly at 
 your service." 
 
 " I suspect the young lady would suit your 
 books better than mine. You, the only son of 
 a man of property, must marry for the entail 
 sake, and had better realize as many acres as 
 you can. I, thank heaven, am safe ! — As per- 
 sonal defects exempt people from the militia, 
 being a younger son secures one at least from 
 the 'peine forte et dure of matrimony." 
 
 '* I fear my droits d'ainesse are scarce worth 
 buying at so high a price !" observed Philip, 
 affecting to treat his position in a tone he would 
 have been sorry to hear applied to it by others. 
 
 " Pho, pho ! — make the best of it, and put up 
 with Miss Heseltine !" cried Lord Storby, 
 smiling significantly at Dick Egerton. 
 
 ** She suits i/ou better than any of us !" added 
 the other. *' Storby is too rich, and I too poor, 
 to marry for money ; 2/ou are the juste milieu." 
 
 *' You mean to call me a middling kind of 
 fellow, eh ?'* — cried Philip Mitford, hoping to 
 disarm their bantering by a joke. 
 
 o2
 
 292 preferment; or, 
 
 ''I mean to call you a lucky dog. The heiress 
 was downright rude to you this evening; and 
 rudeness with young ladies is an infallible sign 
 of favour. As to that pretty girl who sat 
 by her at the tea-table, her cheeks became 
 crimson every time you addressed her.*' 
 
 Philip Mitford was now almost embarrassed 
 in his turn. He had just enough preference for 
 Mary Egerton to dislike the idea of exposing 
 her name to the coarse jesting of his associates. 
 
 " Some humble companion of the heiress, I 
 conclude ?" — inquired Dick Egerton ; who, 
 having merely heard her named " Mary" by 
 the Heseltines, had honoured her with his saucy 
 attentions throughout the evening. 
 
 " No, a country neighbour," replied Lord 
 Storby. " I made especial inquiries of our 
 queer host, partly for want of a better subject 
 of conversation, and partly because she is the 
 prettiest girl I have seen in Sussex." 
 
 " Prettier than tlie heiress f^ demanded 
 Dick, passing his fingers negligently through 
 his curls. 
 
 " The heiress is too brusque for my taste,"
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 293 
 
 replied his lordship. " I am not fond of dictato- 
 rial young ladies. To blush so prettily as Miss 
 Hesel tine's fair friend, is quite conversation 
 enough for any woman. By the way, Mitford, 
 as you know the carte du pays, what is the 
 country neighbour's name ?" 
 
 Philip was deaf, — till, the question having been 
 repeated, he replied, in a tone of affected indif- 
 ference, — *' Egerton, or Edginton, or something 
 of that kind." 
 
 "As if Egerton were a name likcvanother, 
 and had a kind !" — cried Storby, quizzingly. 
 
 ** Egerton!" — reiterated Dick ; — '*?zof Egerton 
 of Hurley House ? — not a sister of the learned 
 Pundit of Trinity ?"— 
 
 *' Not a cousin of your own, you mean, you 
 conceited blockhead !" retorted Lord Storby, 
 with a laugh. 
 
 '* Her father lives at a place called Hurley," 
 said Mitford, perceiving an eclaircissement to be 
 inevitable. " It is close to Eastwick, — and, now 
 1 think of it, as her father is the Honourable 
 Mr. Egerton, he probably is a brother of Lord 
 Tiverton."
 
 294 treferment; ok, 
 
 " And that pretty girl is actually my friend 
 Julius Egerton's sister!'* — exclaimed Lord Storby. 
 " What a brute you were not to tell me so 
 before, that I might have been more civil to her, 
 and assisted her in putting on her pattens and 
 lighting her lantern. But she lives close by, 
 you say ? — I shall pay my compliments to her 
 directly after breakfast to-morrow." 
 
 " Pray take me with you," said Dick ; " I am 
 curious to improve my acquaintance with my 
 country cousins." 
 
 '' We must get Captain Heseltine to shew us 
 the way," observed Mitford, affecting ignorance; 
 though, in his annual visits to Eastwick for 
 four years past, he had been a frequent guest at 
 Hurley, and knew the exact point at which it 
 was easiest to drop over the palings dividing its 
 grounds from those of the Heseltines. 
 
 The result of this idle rattle was, the acquaint- 
 ance described in such bitter terms by Julius 
 Egerton to his brother. Lord Storby, whose 
 regard for his college chum was more sincere 
 than might have been expected from the inti- 
 mate associate of a Dick Egerton, was delighted
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 295 
 
 to find Miss Egerton an agreeable girl, who 
 entered readily into conversation with Julius's 
 friend, and left to her father the task of enter- 
 taining her fashionable cousin ; and to the great 
 discomfiture of the Mitfords, and amusement of 
 Georgiana Heseltine, all the honours of the 
 races were rendered by the young men to the 
 simple, unpretending Mary, instead of to the 
 showy beauties of Mitford Hall. 
 
 Satiated with the vanities of London, it was 
 a relief to them to find a pretty well-bred girl, 
 who conversed in a natural manner, instead of af- 
 fecting the shibboleth of which they were weary. 
 The Mitfords, whose talk consisted of reference 
 to fashionable events, incidents of lordly ball- 
 rooms, and the gossip of the season, were puzzled 
 to conceive what a girl, who had literally never 
 crossed the threshold of London, could find to 
 say of sufficient interest to keep Lord Storby 
 lounging hour after hour by her side, and their 
 brother watching them from a distance ; for it is 
 not easy for a worldly woman to conjecture the 
 charm imparted by a pleasing countenance to 
 the simplest remarks of an intelligent, unaffected
 
 296 PREFERMENT ; OR, 
 
 mind. The fascinations of the handsome, ac- 
 complished Miss Mitfords failed to withdraw the 
 attention of the young Viscount, because the 
 efforts they were making to charm, inspired 
 mistrust. Even Dick Egerton, though provoked 
 to find himself accidentally thrust into the family 
 circle of Julius, whom he was conscious of 
 having treated unworthily, was forced to admit 
 that Mary was a sweet girl, with nothing of the 
 country miss about her, — nothing of the mauvais 
 ton which disgusted him in the sisters and asso- 
 ciates of his lovely friend, Mrs. Vassyll ; and 
 when, on their return from Eastwick to conclude 
 their visit at Mitford Hall, he found that Lord 
 Storby's attentions to Mary were established as 
 a butt for the raillery of the Miss Mitfords, he 
 was not surprised that their misjudging irony 
 proved the means of hastening the Viscount's 
 departure for Storby Castle. 
 
 " Are you aware that our friend, Julius Eger- 
 ton, is curatizing somewhere in this neighbour- 
 hood ?" — inquired Lord Storby of Dick, as he 
 was about to leave the Hall. 
 
 " A curate, is he ? — I fancied old Pelham had
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 297 
 
 given him a living. We have never fallen in 
 vi^ith each other since I met him at your house." 
 
 '* Lord Tiverton is not on good terms, then, 
 with his brother ?" — inquired Lord Storby. 
 
 " Yes, as far as I am aware of. I never hear 
 the governor talk of his family. Like most men 
 of his time of life, he is chiefly occupied with his 
 affairs." 
 
 " There is at least no quarrel between them ? 
 — Mr. Egerton of Hurley is under no sort of 
 cloud ?" — persisted Lord Storby. 
 
 ** Not that I ever heard ; except from having 
 married a schoolmaster's daughter, and encum- 
 bered the family with a tribe of obscure rela- 
 tions." 
 
 " You will have no objection to pay a flying 
 visit to Egerton's parsonage on our way to the 
 north ? I have not seen him these three years, 
 and long to renew our acquaintance." 
 
 " I am unluckily obliged to be in town to- 
 night," said Dick, — not to be hurried into com- 
 mitting himself further by a visit to Helstone 
 Parsonage. 
 
 " Then I must go alone," observed Lord
 
 298 preferment; or, 
 
 Storby, deaf to the hint intending to shew that 
 such a detour would be inconvenient to his tra- 
 velling companion. " I was always partial to 
 Egerton, and am really sorry to have lost sight 
 of him. That Miss Heseltine (a fine, frank, 
 downright girl, by the way, whom I like 
 amazingly) tells me that, finding himself neg- 
 lected by the world, he is beginning to neglect 
 himself, — that he goes nowhere, — sees no one, — 
 and is an altered man. I must persuade him to 
 spend a week or two at the Castle. Perhaps you 
 will come and meet him ?" — 
 
 '* Certainly, if I should be in the north," 
 replied Dick, carelessly ; but predetermined 
 against hazarding the renewal of so unprofitable 
 an acquaintance. " Egerton is a good sort of 
 fellow enough ; — though, like all premature ge- 
 niuses, his promise has burnt out without much 
 of a shine. And though (not having fallen a 
 victim to his sister's blue eyes) I am not in- 
 clined to cut across the country in order to 
 admire him cultivating cabbages, and catechizing 
 the small unwashed, — which, I find from Philip 
 Mitford, constitutes his chief occupation, — I
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 299 
 
 shall be charmed to find him restored under your 
 auspices to civilized society." 
 
 The allusion to Mary Egerton's blue eyes did 
 not serve the purpose anticipated by her crafty 
 cousin, of quizzing young Storby out of his 
 project. The visit, however, failed to accom- 
 plish all that it intended. Julius was too much 
 vexed at hearing from Lord Storby of Dick 
 Egerton's introduction to the family at Hurley, 
 to derive much pleasure from his society. There 
 was something so annoying to him in the idea 
 of the fastidious Mitfords and his insolent 
 cousin being assembled at Eastwick, and placed 
 in contact with the simplicity of his father and 
 sister, that he scarcely gave his attention to the 
 praises of Miss Egerton poured forth by Lord 
 Storby. 
 
 '' I never leave home," was his cold reply, 
 when, at length, he became aware that Lord 
 Storby was not only pressing him to become 
 his guest, but to persuade his father to accom- 
 pany him in the visit. 
 
 "And why not?" cried the Viscount, undis- 
 couraged by a discourtesy for which he came
 
 300 preferment; or, 
 
 prepared by the strictures of Georgiana Hesel- 
 tine. 
 
 *' Because I find myself unfit for the pleasures 
 of the world." 
 
 " You mean, because you consider the world 
 unworthy of you." 
 
 '* No, — the fault is wholly on my side," ob- 
 served Julius, calmly. 
 
 " Then why not amend it ? — Why not come 
 and take a peep now and then at society, that 
 you may be the better qualified to minister to its 
 reformation ?" 
 
 '* My path of life is too humbly appointed for 
 the knowledge acquired in your brilliant circle 
 to be available to my rustic flock," replied Julius 
 Egerton, with a smile. " I should learn to be 
 discontented, and nothing else. At present, I 
 am perfectly calm, perfectly happy. I have for- 
 gotten all I ought to forget ; I am labouring to 
 learn all I ought to know." 
 
 '* I fear you class me among the things you 
 ought to forget, for I appear to have been wholly 
 dismissed from your memory," said Lord Storby, 
 in a tone of pique. And he was proceeding to
 
 MY UNCLE THE EARL. 301 
 
 reinforce his remonstrances with all the facts and 
 arguments suggested to him by Miss Heseltine, 
 when aunt Rachel, apprised by the servants that 
 her nephew's visitor was " Lord Storby," and 
 by the second vol. of Debrett, (p. 142,) that 
 Lord Storby was a viscount, and unmarried, 
 came pressing into the room with offers of re- 
 freshment ; — when his lordship, after winningher 
 affections by a rapid eulogium of Hurley and its 
 inmates, instantly enlisted her on his side in 
 support of his invitation. 
 
 Before luncheon was over, and the travelling 
 carriage brought round, Julius, tormented on 
 both sides, had actually given a conditional 
 promise to visit Storby Castle during the Christ- 
 mas holidays ! 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 T. C. Savill, Printer, 107, St. Martin's Lane.
 
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