rifling with a
French novel.

"Do you remember this passage in _Culture and Anarchy_--'I often,
therefore, when I want to distinguish clearly the aristocratic class
from the Philistines proper, or middle class, name the former, in my own
mind, _the Barbarians_. And when I go through the country, and see this
or that beautiful and imposing seat of theirs crowning the landscape,
"There," I say to myself, "is a great fortified post of the
Barbarians!"'"

The youth pointed smiling to the fine Scotch house seen sideways on the
other side of the lawn. Its turreted and battlemented front rose high
above the low and spreading buildings which made the bulk of the house,
so that it was a feudal castle--by no means, however, so old as it
looked--on a front view, and a large and roomy villa from the rear.
Meadows, looking at it, appreciated the fitness of the quotation, and
laughed in response.

"Ungrateful wretch," he said--"after that dinner last night!"

"All the same, Matthew Arnold had that dinner in mind--_chef_ and all!
Listen! 'The graver self of the Barbarian likes honours and
consideration; his more relaxed self, field-sports and pleasures.'
Isn't it exact? Grouse-driving in the morning--bridge, politics,
Cabinet-making, and the best of food in the evening. And I should put
our hostess very high--wouldn't you?--among the chatelaines of the
'great fortified posts'?"

Meadows assented, but rather languidly. The day was extremely hot; he
was tired, moreover, by a long walk with the guns the day before, and by
conversation after dinner, led by Lady Dunstable, which had lasted up to
nearly one o'clock in the morning. The talk had been brilliant, no
doubt. Meadows, however, did not feel that he had come off very well in
it. His hostess had deliberately pitted him against two of the ablest
men in England, and he was well aware that he had disappointed her. Lady
Dunstable had a way of behaving to her favourite author or artist of the
moment as though she were the fancier and he the cock. She fought him
against the other people's cocks with astonishing zeal and passion; and
whenever he failed to kill, or lost too many feathers in the process,
her annoyance was evident.

Meadows was in truth becoming a little tired of her dictation, although
it was only ten days since he had arrived under her roof. There was a
large amount of lethargy combined with his ability; and he hated to be
obliged to live at any pace but his own. But