eave them but poorly off; and though he did struggle
to save something, the duty of living as Sir Alured Wharton of
Wharton Hall should live made those struggles very ineffective.
He was a melancholy, proud, ignorant man, who could not endure a
personal liberty, and who thought the assertion of social equality
on the part of men of lower rank to amount to the taking of personal
liberty;--who read little or nothing, and thought that he knew the
history of his country because he was aware that Charles I had had
his head cut off, and that the Georges had come from Hanover. If
Charles I had never had his head cut off, and if the Georges had
never come from Hanover, the Whartons would now probably be great
people and Britain a great nation. But the Evil One had been allowed
to prevail, and everything had gone astray, and Sir Alured now had
nothing of this world to console him but a hazy retrospect of past
glories, and a delight in the beauty of his own river, his own park,
and his own house. Sir Alured, with all his foibles and with all his
faults, was a pure-minded, simple gentleman, who could not tell a
lie, who could not do a wrong, and who was earnest in his desire to
make those who were dependent on him comfortable, and, if possible,
happy. Once a year he came up to London for a week, to see his
lawyers, and get measured for a coat, and go to the dentist. These
were the excuses which he gave, but it was fancied by some that his
wig was the great moving cause. Sir Alured and Mr. Wharton were
second cousins, and close friends. Sir Alured trusted his cousin
altogether in all things, believing him to be the great legal
luminary of Great Britain, and Mr. Wharton returned his cousin's
affection, entertaining something akin to reverence for the man who
was the head of his family. He dearly loved Sir Alured,--and loved
Sir Alured's wife and two daughters. Nevertheless, the second week at
Wharton Hall became always tedious to him, and the fourth, fifth, and
sixth weeks frightful with ennui.

Perhaps it was with some unconscious dread of this tedium that he
made a sudden suggestion to Sir Alured in reference to Dresden. Sir
Alured had come to him at his chambers, and the two old men were
sitting together near the open window. Sir Alured delighted in the
privilege of sitting there, which seemed to confer upon him something
of an insight into the inner ways of London life beyond what he could
get at his hotel or his wigmaker's. "G