So when a young man, not more than thirty-four, rather handsome, of good character, and apparently good temper, intelligent and agreeable, who went to church the first Sunday after he came to Cross Hall, and who was the legitimate heir to the old family of Hogarth, came to settle in the county as a neighbour, his having been clerk in a bank for eighteen years was not looked on as a drawback.  He was all the more likely to take good care of his money now he had got it; and calls and invitations came from every quarter.  Mr. and Mrs. Rennie, who had had visions of his being exactly the person to suit their Eliza, had a month’s start of the country neighbours; but they feared the result of his being thrown among such families as the Chalmerses, the Maxwells, the Crichtons, and the Jardines.  He had asked the Rennies to pay him a visit at Cross Hall in the autumn, when they always took a run to the country or to the seaside, and had accompanied his invitation with a request, that if his cousins came to Edinburgh, the Rennies would show them some kindness and attention, which they readily promised to do.

If Mrs. Rennie had known his secret feelings towards the country families, she might have set her mind at rest as to their rivalry; but Francis was very reserved, and his training had not led him to place confidence in any one, till his heart had recently opened to his cousin Jane.  He received the visits of his new neighbours civilly, and accepted their invitations; but the conduct of these people towards the disinherited girls made him secretly repel their advances towards his prosperous self.  It appeared to show such barefaced worldliness and selfishness, that he shrank from the most insinuating speeches and the most flattering attentions.

He did not know how much of the coldness of Jane and Elsie’s old neighbours proceeded from the dislike and suspicion with which Mr. Hogarth’s religious opinions, or rather his religious scepticism, was regarded in a particularly orthodox district.  They had exchanged formal visits, and had invited each other to large parties, because not to do so would have been unneighbourly; but with none of the people about Swinton had there ever been any familiar intimacy.  Jane and Elsie were supposed to be deeply tinged with their uncle’s heresies, and they were such very strange girls, having been so strangely brought up; and having no mother or female relative to exert any influence, their uncle had brought them up like boys, which everybody thought very improper.  Emilia Chalmers, who was musical, could not get on with them at all; the three Miss Jardines, who were very amiable girls, with nothing in them, could not tell whether to call them blues or hoydens; their Latin and algebra on the one hand, and their swimming-bath, and their riding about the country without a groom on the other, made them altogether so unfeminine.  Their uncle thought they were quite able to take care of themselves and of each other, and fancied more mischief might arise from the attendance of a groom than could result from his absence; and the girls cared for no company in their rides till William Dalzell had offered his escort and made himself so agreeable.