It was rather strange that, having this thought, and having been struck, as I said, with Maggie’s appearance while she stood in the door-way (and I may add that this impression of her unobtrusive beauty had been deepened by several succeeding interviews), he should reply as he did to Erminia’s remark, on first seeing Maggie after her return from France.

“How lovely Maggie is growing!  Why, I had no idea she would ever turn out pretty.  Sweet-looking she always was; but now her style of beauty makes her positively distinguished.  Frank! speak! is not she beautiful?”

“Do you think so?” answered he, with a kind of lazy indifference, exceedingly gratifying to his father, who was listening with some eagerness to his answer.  That day, after dinner, Mr. Buxton began to ask his opinion of Erminia’s appearance.

Frank answered at once: 

“She is a dazzling little creature.  Her complexion looks as if it were made of cherries and milk; and, it must be owned, the little lady has studied the art of dress to some purpose in Paris.”

Mr. Buxton was nearer happiness at this reply than he had ever been since his wife’s death; for the only way he could devise to satisfy his reproachful conscience towards his neglected and unhappy sister, was to plan a marriage between his son and her child.  He rubbed his hands and drank two extra glasses of wine.

“We’ll have the Brownes to dinner, as usual, next Thursday,” said he, “I am sure your mother would have been hurt if we had omitted it; it is now nine years since they began to come, and they have never missed one Christmas since.  Do you see any objection, Frank?”

“None at all, sir,” answered he.  “I intend to go up to town soon after Christmas, for a week or ten days, on my way to Cambridge.  Can I do anything for you?”

“Well, I don’t know.  I think I shall go up myself some day soon.  I can’t understand all these lawyer’s letters, about the purchase of the Newbridge estate; and I fancy I could make more sense out of it all, if I saw Mr. Hodgson.”

“I wish you would adopt my plan, of having an agent, sir.  Your affairs are really so complicated now, that they would take up the time of an expert man of business.  I am sure all those tenants at Dumford ought to be seen after.”

“I do see after them.  There’s never a one that dares cheat me, or that would cheat me if they could.  Most of them have lived under the Buxtons for generations.  They know that if they dared to take advantage of me, I should come down upon them pretty smartly.”

“Do you rely upon their attachment to your family—­or on their idea of your severity?”

“On both.  They stand me instead of much trouble in account-keeping, and those eternal lawyers’ letters some people are always dispatching to their tenants.  When I’m cheated, Frank, I give you leave to make me have an agent, but not till then.  There’s my little Erminia singing away, and nobody to hear her.”