Sir Leicester Dedlock is only a baronet, but there is no mightier baronet than he.  His family is as old as the hills, and infinitely more respectable.  He has a general opinion that the world might get on without hills but would be done up without Dedlocks.  He would on the whole admit nature to be a good idea (a little low, perhaps, when not enclosed with a park-fence), but an idea dependent for its execution on your great county families.  He is a gentleman of strict conscience, disdainful of all littleness and meanness and ready on the shortest notice to die any death you may please to mention rather than give occasion for the least impeachment of his integrity.  He is an honourable, obstinate, truthful, high-spirited, intensely prejudiced, perfectly unreasonable man.

Sir Leicester is twenty years, full measure, older than my Lady.  He will never see sixty-five again, nor perhaps sixty-six, nor yet sixty-seven.  He has a twist of the gout now and then and walks a little stiffly.  He is of a worthy presence, with his light-grey hair and whiskers, his fine shirt-frill, his pure-white waistcoat, and his blue coat with bright buttons always buttoned.  He is ceremonious, stately, most polite on every occasion to my Lady, and holds her personal attractions in the highest estimation.  His gallantry to my Lady, which has never changed since he courted her, is the one little touch of romantic fancy in him.

Indeed, he married her for love.  A whisper still goes about that she had not even family; howbeit, Sir Leicester had so much family that perhaps he had enough and could dispense with any more.  But she had beauty, pride, ambition, insolent resolve, and sense enough to portion out a legion of fine ladies.  Wealth and station, added to these, soon floated her upward, and for years now my Lady Dedlock has been at the centre of the fashionable intelligence and at the top of the fashionable tree.

How Alexander wept when he had no more worlds to conquer, everybody knows—­or has some reason to know by this time, the matter having been rather frequently mentioned.  My Lady Dedlock, having conquered her world, fell not into the melting, but rather into the freezing, mood.  An exhausted composure, a worn-out placidity, an equanimity of fatigue not to be ruffled by interest or satisfaction, are the trophies of her victory.  She is perfectly well-bred.  If she could be translated to heaven to-morrow, she might be expected to ascend without any rapture.

She has beauty still, and if it be not in its heyday, it is not yet in its autumn.  She has a fine face—­originally of a character that would be rather called very pretty than handsome, but improved into classicality by the acquired expression of her fashionable state.  Her figure is elegant and has the effect of being tall.  Not that she is so, but that “the most is made,” as the Honourable Bob Stables has frequently asserted upon oath, “of all her points.”  The same authority observes that she is perfectly got up and remarks in commendation of her hair especially that she is the best-groomed woman in the whole stud.