ours in
London, and hard work. Some country air will do you all the good in the
world. That gallery must be tiresome. Do you use shorthand?"

"A sort of shorthand of my own," said Egremont. "I trust a good deal to
my memory."

"Ah! you are young. My daughter also has a wonderful memory. For my own
part, there are many things which I am not sorry to forget."

"You see I took you at your word, neighbour," said Egremont. "When one
has been at work the whole day one feels a little lonely towards night."

"Very true; and I dare say you find desk work sometimes very dull; I
never could make anything of it myself. I can manage a book well enough,
if it be well written, and on points I care for; but I would sooner
listen than read any time," said Gerard. "Indeed I should be right glad
to see the minstrel and the storyteller going their rounds again. It
would be easy after a day's work, when one has not, as I have now, a
good child to read to me."

"This volume?" said Egremont drawing his chair to the table and looking
at Sybil, who intimated assent by a nod.

"Ah! it's a fine book," said Gerard, "though on a sad subject."

"The History of the Conquest of England by the Normans," said Egremont,
reading the title page on which also was written "Ursula Trafford to
Sybil Gerard."

"You know it?" said Sybil.

"Only by fame."

"Perhaps the subject may not interest you so much as it does us," said
Sybil.

"It must interest all and all alike," said her father; "for we are
divided between the conquerors and the conquered."

"But do not you think," said Egremont, "that such a distinction has long
ceased to exist?"

"In what degree?" asked Gerard. "Many circumstances of oppression have
doubtless gradually disappeared: but that has arisen from the change of
manners, not from any political recognition of their injustice. The same
course of time which has removed many enormities, more shocking however
to our modern feelings than to those who devised and endured them,
has simultaneously removed many alleviating circumstances. If the mere
baron's grasp be not so ruthless, the champion we found in the church
is no longer so ready. The spirit of Conquest has adapted itself to the
changing circumstances of ages, and however its results vary in form, in
degree they are much the same."

"But how do they show themselves?"

"In many circumstances, which concern many classes; but I speak of
those which touch my own order; and there