a broad-faced, broad-chested,
loud-screaming rascal, I knew you were every inch of you a Tradgett."

"But you might have been a little too hasty there, Mother," said Mr.
Irwine, smiling. "Don't you remember how it was with Juno's last pups?
One of them was the very image of its mother, but it had two or three
of its father's tricks notwithstanding. Nature is clever enough to cheat
even you, Mother."

"Nonsense, child! Nature never makes a ferret in the shape of a mastiff.
You'll never persuade me that I can't tell what men are by their
outsides. If I don't like a man's looks, depend upon it I shall never
like HIM. I don't want to know people that look ugly and disagreeable,
any more than I want to taste dishes that look disagreeable. If they
make me shudder at the first glance, I say, take them away. An ugly,
piggish, or fishy eye, now, makes me feel quite ill; it's like a bad
smell."

"Talking of eyes," said Captain Donnithorne, "that reminds me that I've
got a book I meant to bring you, Godmamma. It came down in a parcel from
London the other day. I know you are fond of queer, wizardlike stories.
It's a volume of poems, 'Lyrical Ballads.' Most of them seem to be
twaddling stuff, but the first is in a different style--'The Ancient
Mariner' is the title. I can hardly make head or tail of it as a story,
but it's a strange, striking thing. I'll send it over to you; and there
are some other books that you may like to see, Irwine--pamphlets about
Antinomianism and Evangelicalism, whatever they may be. I can't think
what the fellow means by sending such things to me. I've written to him
to desire that from henceforth he will send me no book or pamphlet on
anything that ends in ISM."

"Well, I don't know that I'm very fond of isms myself; but I may as well
look at the pamphlets; they let one see what is going on. I've a little
matter to attend to, Arthur," continued Mr. Irwine, rising to leave the
room, "and then I shall be ready to set out with you."

The little matter that Mr. Irwine had to attend to took him up the old
stone staircase (part of the house was very old) and made him pause
before a door at which he knocked gently. "Come in," said a woman's
voice, and he entered a room so darkened by blinds and curtains that
Miss Kate, the thin middle-aged lady standing by the bedside, would not
have had light enough for any other sort of work than the knitting which
lay on the little table near her. But at present she was