with a good deal of personal liking.  “Poor Wilkins,” as they called him, “was sadly extravagant for a man in his position; had no right to spend money, and act as if he were a man of independent fortune.”  His habits of life were criticised; and pity, not free from blame, was bestowed upon him for the losses he had sustained from his late clerk’s disappearance and defalcation.  But what could be expected if a man did not choose to attend to his own business?

The wedding went by, as grand weddings do, without let or hindrance, according to the approved pattern.  A Cabinet minister honoured it with his presence, and, being a distant relation of the Brabants, remained for a few days after the grand occasion.  During this time he became rather intimate with Ralph Corbet; many of their tastes were in common.  Ralph took a great interest in the manner of working out political questions; in the balance and state of parties; and had the right appreciation of the exact qualities on which the minister piqued himself.  In return, the latter was always on the look-out for promising young men, who, either by their capability of speech-making or article-writing, might advance the views of his party.  Recognising the powers he most valued in Ralph, he spared no pains to attach him to his own political set.  When they separated, it was with the full understanding that they were to see a good deal of each other in London.

The holiday Ralph allowed himself was passing rapidly away; but, before he returned to his chambers and his hard work, he had promised to spend a few more days with Ellinor; and it suited him to go straight from the duke’s to Ford Bank.  He left the castle soon after breakfast—­the luxurious, elegant breakfast, served by domestics who performed their work with the accuracy and perfection of machines.  He arrived at Ford Bank before the man-servant had quite finished the dirtier part of his morning’s work, and he came to the glass-door in his striped cotton jacket, a little soiled, and rolling up his working apron.  Ellinor was not yet strong enough to get up and go out and gather flowers for the rooms, so those left from yesterday were rather faded; in short, the contrast from entire completeness and exquisite freshness of arrangement struck forcibly upon Ralph’s perceptions, which were critical rather than appreciative; and, as his affections were always subdued to his intellect, Ellinor’s lovely face and graceful figure flying to meet him did not gain his full approval, because her hair was dressed in an old-fashioned way, her waist was either too long or too short, her sleeves too full or too tight for the standard of fashion to which his eye had been accustomed while scanning the bridesmaids and various highborn ladies at Stokely Castle.

But, as he had always piqued himself upon being able to put on one side all superficial worldliness in his chase after power, it did not do for him to shrink from seeing and facing the incompleteness of moderate means.  Only marriage upon moderate means was gradually becoming more distasteful to him.