“Brutes are sometimes very beautiful, mamma.  I am sure I should think it a compliment to be likened to a racehorse, such as the one we saw.  But the thing in which they are alike, is the sort of repressed eagerness in both.”

“Eager!  Why, I should say there never was any one cooler than Mr. Donne.  Think of the trouble your papa has had this month past, and then remember the slow way in which Mr. Donne moves when he is going out to canvass, and the low, drawling voice in which he questions the people who bring him intelligence.  I can see your papa standing by, ready to shake them to get out their news.”

“But Mr. Donne’s questions are always to the point, and force out the grain without the chaff.  And look at him, if any one tells him ill news about the election!  Have you never seen a dull red light come into his eyes?  That is like my race-horse.  Her flesh quivered all over, at certain sounds and noises which had some meaning to her; but she stood quite still, pretty creature!  Now, Mr. Donne is just as eager as she was, though he may be too proud to show it.  Though he seems so gentle, I almost think he is very headstrong in following out his own will.”

“Well! don’t call him like a horse again, for I am sure papa would not like it.  Do you know, I thought you were going to say he was like little Leonard, when you asked me who he was like.”

“Leonard!  O mamma! he is not in the least like Leonard.  He is twenty times more like my race-horse.”

“Now, my dear Jemima, do be quiet.  Your father thinks racing so wrong, that I am sure he would be very seriously displeased if he were to hear you.”

To return to Mr. Bradshaw, and to give one more of his various reasons for wishing to take Mr. Donne to Abermouth.  The wealthy Eccleston manufacturer was uncomfortably impressed with an indefinable sense of inferiority to his visitor.  It was not in education, for Mr. Bradshaw was a well-educated man; it was not in power, for, if he chose, the present object of Mr. Donne’s life might be utterly defeated; it did not arise from anything overbearing in manner, for Mr. Donne was habitually polite and courteous, and was just now anxious to propitiate his host, whom he looked upon as a very useful man.  Whatever this sense of inferiority arose from, Mr. Bradshaw was anxious to relieve himself from it, and imagined that if he could make more display of his wealth his object would be obtained.  Now, his house in Eccleston was old-fashioned and ill-calculated to exhibit money’s worth.  His mode of living, though strained to a high pitch just at this time, he became aware was no more than Mr. Donne was accustomed to every day of his life.  The first day at dessert, some remark (some opportune remark, as Mr. Bradshaw, in his innocence, had thought) was made regarding the price of pine-apples, which was rather exorbitant that year, and Mr. Donne asked Mrs. Bradshaw, with quiet surprise, if they had no pinery, as if to be without a pinery were indeed a depth of pitiable destitution.  In fact, Mr. Donne had been born and cradled in all that wealth could purchase, and so had his ancestors before him for so many generations, that refinement and luxury seemed the natural condition of man, and they that dwelt without were in the position of monsters.  The absence was noticed; but not the presence.