'Yes, I believe the dowager's character is rather fine,' said
Maulevrier; 'but she and I have never hit our horses very well together.
She would have liked such a fellow as you for a grandson, Jack--a man
who took high honours at Oxford, and could hold his own against all
comers. Such a grandson would have gratified her pride, and would have
repaid her for the trouble she had taken in nursing the Maulevrier
estate; for however poor a property it was when her husband went to
India there is no doubt that it is a very fine estate now, and that the
dowager has been the making of it.'
The two young men strolled up to Easedale Tarn before they went back to
Fellside, where Lady Maulevrier received them with a stately
graciousness, and where Lady Lesbia unbent considerably at luncheon, and
condescended to an animated conversation with her brother's friend. It
was such a new thing to have a stranger at the family board, a man whose
information was well abreast with the march of progress, who could talk
eloquently upon every subject which people care to talk about.
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