don had affectionately discovered before he had insured a life too
valuable not to need some compensation for its loss. He was now, then,
in the possession of L2500 a year, and was therefore very well off,
in the pecuniary sense of the phrase. He had, moreover, acquired a
reputation which gave him a social rank beyond that accorded to him by
a discerning State. He was considered a man of solid judgment, and
his opinion upon all matters, private and public, carried weight. The
opinion itself, critically examined, was not worth much, but the way he
announced it was imposing. Mr. Fox said that 'No one ever was so wise as
Lord Thurlow looked.' Lord Thurlow could not have looked wiser than Mr.
Chillingly Gordon. He had a square jaw and large red bushy eyebrows,
which he lowered down with great effect when he delivered judgment.
He had another advantage for acquiring grave reputation. He was a very
unpleasant man. He could be rude if you contradicted him; and as few
persons wish to provoke rudeness, so he was seldom contradicted.

Mr. Chillingly Mivers, another cadet of the house, was also
distinguished, but in a different way. He was a bachelor, now about the
age of thirty-five. He was eminent for a supreme well-bred contempt for
everybody and everything. He was the originator and chief proprietor of
a public journal called "The Londoner," which had lately been set up on
that principle of contempt, and we need not say, was exceedingly popular
with those leading members of the community who admire nobody and
believe in nothing. Mr. Chillingly Mivers was regarded by himself and
by others as a man who might have achieved the highest success in any
branch of literature, if he had deigned to exhibit his talents therein.
But he did not so deign, and therefore he had full right to imply that,
if he had written an epic, a drama, a novel, a history, a metaphysical
treatise, Milton, Shakspeare, Cervantes, Hume, Berkeley would have been
nowhere. He held greatly to the dignity of the anonymous; and even in
the journal which he originated nobody could ever ascertain what he
wrote. But, at all events, Mr. Chillingly Mivers was what Mr. Chillingly
Gordon was not; namely, a very clever man, and by no means an unpleasant
one in general society.

The Rev. John Stalworth Chillingly was a decided adherent to the creed
of what is called "muscular Christianity," and a very fine specimen
of it too. A tall stout man with broad shoulders, and that d