She thought this of men; and she liked men by choice.  She had old nurse’s preference for the lustier male child.  The others are puling things, easier to rear, because they bend better; and less esteemed, though they give less trouble, rouse less care.  But when it came to the duel between the man and the woman, her sense of justice was moved to join her with the party of her unfairly handled sisters—­a strong party, if it were not so cowardly, she had to think.

Mr. Eglett, her husband, accepted her—­accepted the position into which he naturally fell beside her, and the ideas she imposed on him; for she never went counter to his principles.  These were the fixed principles of a very wealthy man, who abhorred debt, and was punctilious in veracity, scrupulous in cleanliness of mind and body, devoted to the honour of his country, the interests of his class.  She respected the high landmark possessing such principles; and she was therefore enabled to lead without the wish to rule.  As it had been between them at the beginning, so it was now, when they were grandparents running on three lines of progeny from two daughters and a son:  they were excellent friends.  Few couples can say more.  The union was good English grey—­that of a prolonged November, to which we are reconciled by occasions for the hunt and the gun.  She was, nevertheless, an impassioned woman.  The feeling for her brother helped to satisfy her heart’s fires, though as little with her brother as with her husband was she demonstrative.  Lord Ormont disrelished the caresses of relatives.

She, for her part, had so strong a sympathy on behalf of poor gentlemen reduced to submit to any but a young woman’s hug, that when, bronzed from India, he quitted the carriage and mounted her steps at Olmer, the desire to fling herself on his neck and breast took form in the words:  “Here you are home again, Rowsley; glad to have you.”  They shook hands firmly.

He remained three days at Olmer.  His temper was mild, his frame of mind bad as could be.  Angry evaporations had left a residuum of solid scorn for these “English,” who rewarded soldierly services as though it were a question of damaged packages of calico.  He threatened to take the first offer of a foreign State “not in insurrection.”  But clear sky was overhead.  He was the Rowsley of the old boyish delight in field sports, reminiscences of prowlings and trappings in the woods, gropings along water-banks, enjoyment of racy gossip.  He spoke wrathfully of “one of their newspapers” which steadily persisted in withholding from publication every letter he wrote to it, after printing the first.  And if it printed one, why not the others?

Lady Charlotte put it on the quaintness of editors.

He had found in London, perhaps, reason for saying that he should do well to be “out of this country” as early as he could; adding, presently, that he meant to go, though “it broke his heart to keep away from a six months’ rest at Steignton,” his Wiltshire estate.