o young man could confess his faults more candidly; candour
was one of his favourite virtues; and how can a man's candour be seen
in all its lustre unless he has a few failings to talk of? But he had
an agreeable confidence that his faults were all of a generous
kind--impetuous, warm-blooded, leonine; never crawling, crafty,
reptilian. It was not possible for Arthur Donnithorne to do anything
mean, dastardly, or cruel. "No! I'm a devil of a fellow for getting
myself into a hobble, but I always take care the load shall fall on
my own shoulders." Unhappily, there is no inherent poetical justice in
hobbles, and they will sometimes obstinately refuse to inflict their
worst consequences on the prime offender, in spite of his loudly
expressed wish. It was entirely owing to this deficiency in the scheme
of things that Arthur had ever brought any one into trouble besides
himself. He was nothing if not good-natured; and all his pictures of
the future, when he should come into the estate, were made up of a
prosperous, contented tenantry, adoring their landlord, who would be the
model of an English gentleman--mansion in first-rate order, all elegance
and high taste--jolly housekeeping, finest stud in Loamshire--purse open
to all public objects--in short, everything as different as possible
from what was now associated with the name of Donnithorne. And one of
the first good actions he would perform in that future should be to
increase Irwine's income for the vicarage of Hayslope, so that he might
keep a carriage for his mother and sisters. His hearty affection for the
rector dated from the age of frocks and trousers. It was an affection
partly filial, partly fraternal--fraternal enough to make him like
Irwine's company better than that of most younger men, and filial enough
to make him shrink strongly from incurring Irwine's disapprobation.

You perceive that Arthur Donnithorne was "a good fellow"--all his
college friends thought him such. He couldn't bear to see any one
uncomfortable; he would have been sorry even in his angriest moods for
any harm to happen to his grandfather; and his Aunt Lydia herself had
the benefit of that soft-heartedness which he bore towards the whole
sex. Whether he would have self-mastery enough to be always as harmless
and purely beneficent as his good-nature led him to desire, was a
question that no one had yet decided against him; he was but twenty-one,
you remember, and we don't inquire too closely in