But since his return from abroad he had not
taken, or desired to take, a lead in political matters: he preferred
living quietly on his estates, and for the greater part of the year at
Birns Castle, as the seat of the Birndale family was called, the village
in its neighborhood being known as "The Birns."

Birns Castle was an ambitious building, and really had accomplished its
design of looking "lordly," as the guidebooks say. When you entered it
by the main entrance, you stepped into a large hall lighted from the
roof, and looking up to such a height was very grand: all round this
hall there ran a gallery, and when high carnival was held at the castle,
in this gallery servants, retainers and other privileged persons were
stationed to see the nobility and gentry dancing below; and it was all
"mighty fine," as Pepys would have said. It was even more than mighty
fine on the occasion of the marriage of Lady Mary, the earl's eldest
daughter, to an English duke, the duke of Dover. From her father down to
the poorest and farthest-off relations of the Birndale family this
marriage had made the nerves of every one tingle with delight. But,
alas! grand as the marriage was, it had not turned out a happy one:
there had been no violent outbreak nor any public scandal, but the duke
and duchess saw as little of each other as possible: they both visited
now and then at Birns Castle, but never together. The duke appeared to
enjoy himself, and so, for that matter, did the duchess, but each went
his and her way. Besides the duchess of Dover, the earl had two
daughters, Ladies Helen and Louisa: he had no son, and his wife had been
dead some years.

When there happened to be no company at the castle the young ladies felt
it decidedly dull. It was true they had no end of china, old and new,
foreign and of home manufacture; they had a gallery of paintings
worth--it is better not to say how much--but the work of old masters and
new, besides ancestors looking at them from every wall; they had
drawing-rooms swarming with every unnecessary of life; they had the
spacious and lofty hall with armor and swords and spears and shields,
"all useful," as an auctioneer would say--"all useful, gentlemen, for
decorative purposes"--with trophies of the chase in its milder home
forms and as carried on in African or Bengal jungles; they had a library
filled from floor to ceiling with books containing, it is to be
presumed, the life-blood of master spirits, bu