She had been very clever, this daughter of the Esterworths.  She had kept a tight rein over her husband all through the early years of their married life.  She would have no ostentation, no vulgar display of wealth, no parading and flaunting of that twenty thousand per annum in their neighbours’ faces.  And she had done what she had intended; she had established her husband’s position well in the county—­she had made him to be accepted, not only by reason of his wealth, but also because he was her husband; she had roused no one’s envy—­she had never given cause for spite or jealousy—­she had made him popular as well as herself.  They had lived quietly and unobtrusively; they had, of course, had everything of the best; their horses and carriages were irreproachable, but they had not had more of them than their neighbours.  They had entertained freely, and they had given their guests well-cooked dinners and expensive wines; but there had been nothing lavish in their entertainments, nothing that could make any of them go away and say to themselves, with angry discontent, that “those Millers” were purse-proud and vulgar in their wealth.  When she had gone to her neighbours’ houses Mrs. Miller had been handsomely but never extravagantly dressed; she had praised their cooks, and expressed herself envious of their flowers, and had bemoaned her own inability to vie with their peaches and their pineapples; she had never talked about her own possessions, nor had she ever paraded her own eight thousand pounds’ worth of diamonds before the envious eyes of women who had none.

In this way she had made herself popular—­and in this way she had won the county seat for her husband.

When, however, that great end and aim of her existence was accomplished, Caroline Miller felt that she might now fairly launch out a little.  The time was come when she might reap the advantage of her long years of repression and patient waiting.  Her daughters were growing up, her sons were all at school.  For her children’s sake, it was time that she should take the lead in the county which their father’s fortune and new position entitled them to, and which no one now was likely to grudge them.  Shadonake therefore was bought, and the house straightway pulled down, and built up again in a style, and with a magnificence, befitting Mr. Miller’s wealth.

Bricks and mortar were Andrew Miller’s delight.  He was never so happy as during the three years that Shadonake House was being built; every stone that was laid was a fresh interest to him; every inch of brick wall a keen and special delight.  He had been disappointed not to have had the spoliation of Shadonake Bath; it had been a distinct mortification to him to have to forego the four brick walls which would have replaced its ancient steps; but then he had made it up to himself by altering the position of the front door three times before it was finally settled to his satisfaction.

But all this was over by this time, and when my story begins Shadonake new House, as it was sometimes called, was built, and furnished and inhabited in every corner of its lofty rooms, and all along the spacious length of its many wide corridors.