“Merthyr, I do you the honour to hand this young lady to your charge,” said Lady Gosstre, putting on equal terms with Emilia a gentleman of perhaps five-and-thirty years; who reminded her of Mr. Barrett, but was unclouded by that look of firm sadness which characterized the poor organist.  Mr. Powys was a travelled Welsh squire, Lady Gosstre’s best talker, on whom, as Brookfield learnt to see, she could perfectly rely to preserve the child from any little drawing-room sins or dinner-table misadventures.  This gentleman had made sacrifices for the cause of Italy, in money, and, it was said, in blood.  He knew the country and loved the people.  Brookfield remarked that there was just a foreign tinge in his manner; and that his smile, though social to a degree unknown to the run of English faces, did not give him all to you, and at a second glance seemed plainly to say that he reserved much.

Adela fell to the lot of a hussar-captain:  a celebrated beauty, not too foolish.  She thought it proper to punish him for his good looks till propitiated by his good temper.

Nobody at Brookfield could remember afterwards who took Arabella down to dinner; she declaring that she had forgotten.  Her sisters, not unwilling to see insignificance banished to annihilation, said that it must have been nobody in person, and that he was a very useful guest when ladies were engaged.  Cornelia had a different lot.  She leaned on the right arm of the Member for Hillford, the statistical debate, Sir Twickenham Pryme, who had twice before, as he ventured to remind her, enjoyed the honour of conversing, if not of dining, with her.  Nay, more, he revived their topics.  “And I have come round to your way of thinking as regards hustings addresses,” he said.  “In nine cases out of ten—­at least, nineteen-twentieths of the House will furnish instances—­one can only, as you justly observed, appeal to the comprehension of the mob by pledging oneself either to their appetites or passions, and it is better plainly to state the case and put it to them in figures.”  Whether the Baronet knew what he was saying is one matter:  he knew what he meant.

Wilfrid was cavalier to Lady Charlotte Chillingworth, of Stornley, about ten miles distant from Hillford; ninth daughter of a nobleman who passed current as the Poor Marquis; he having been ruined when almost a boy in Paris, by the late illustrious Lord Dartford.  Her sisters had married captains in the army and navy, lawyers, and parsons, impartially.  Lady Charlotte was nine-and-twenty years of age; with clear and telling stone-blue eyes, firm but not unsweet lips, slightly hollowed cheeks, and a jaw that certainly tended to be square.  Her colour was healthy.  Walking or standing her figure was firmly poised.  Her chief attraction was a bell-toned laugh, fresh as a meadow spring.  She had met Wilfrid once in the hunting-field, so they soon had common ground to run on.

Mr. Powys made Emilia happy by talking to her of Italy, in the intervals of table anecdotes.