cloth could help him to be. A sharp inspection satisfied the ladies that
his hat and boots were inoffensive: whereupon they gave him the three
shades of distance, tempered so as not to wound his susceptible poverty.

The superlative Polar degree appeared to invigorate Mr. Barrett. He
devoted his remarks mainly to Cornelia, and cheerfully received her
frozen monosyllables in exchange. The ladies talked of Organs and Art,
Emilia and Opera. He knew this and that great organ, and all the operas;
but he amazed the ladies by talking as if he knew great people likewise.
This brought out Mr. Pole, who, since he had purchased Brookfield, had
been extinguished by them and had not once thoroughly enjoyed his money's
worth. A courtly poor man was a real pleasure to him.

Giving a semicircular sweep of his arm: "Here you see my little estate,
sir," he said. "You've seen plenty bigger in Germany, and England too. We
can't get more than this handful in our tight little island. Unless born
to it, of course. Well! we must be grateful that all our nobility don't
go to the dogs. We must preserve our great names. I speak against my own
interest."

He lifted Adela's chin on his forefinger. She kept her eyes demurely
downward, and then gazed at her sisters with gravity. These ladies took a
view of Mr. Barrett. His features wore an admirable expression of simple
interest. "Well, sir; suppose you dine with us to-day?" Mr. Pole bounced
out. "Neighbours should be neighbourly."

This abrupt invitation was decorously accepted.

"Plain dinner, you know. Nothing like what you get at the tables of those
Erzhogs, as you call 'em, over in Germany. Simple fare; sound wine! At
all events, it won't hurt you. You'll come?"

Mr. Barrett bowed, murmuring thanks. This was the very man Mr. Pole
wanted to have at his board occasionally: one who had known great people,
and would be thankful for a dinner. He could depreciate himself as a mere
wealthy British merchant imposingly before such a man. His daughters had
completely cut him off from his cronies; and the sense of restriction,
and compression, and that his own house was fast becoming alien territory
to him, made him pounce upon the gentlemanly organist. His daughters
wondered why he should, in the presence of this stranger, exaggerate his
peculiar style of speech. But the worthy merchant's consciousness of his
identity was vanishing under the iron social rule of the ladies. His
perishing individuali