arquis. Her face, though handsome, was quite impassive,
showing nothing of her sorrows or her joys; and her voice was equally
under control. No one had ever imagined, not even her husband,
that she felt acutely that one blow of fortune. Though Hampstead's
politics had been to her abominable, treasonable, blasphemous, she
treated him with an extreme courtesy. If there were anything that
he wished about the house she would have it done for him. She would
endeavour to interest herself about his hunting. And she would pay
him a great respect,--to him most onerous,--as being second in all
things to the Marquis. Though a Republican blasphemous rebel,--so
she thought of him,--he was second to the Marquis. She would fain
have taught her little boys to respect him,--as the future head of
the family,--had he not been so accustomed to romp with them, to
pull them out of their little beds, and toss them about in their
night-shirts, that they loved him much too well for respect. It was
in vain that their mother strove to teach them to call him Hampstead.

Lady Frances had never been specially in her way, but to Lady Frances
the stepmother had been perhaps harder than to the stepson, of whose
presence as an absolute block to her ambition she was well aware.
Lady Frances had no claim to a respect higher than that which was due
to her own children. Primogeniture had done nothing for her. She was
a Marquis's daughter, but her mother had been only the offspring of a
commoner. There was perhaps something of conscience in her feelings
towards the two. As Lord Hampstead was undoubtedly in her way, it
occurred to her to think that she should not on that account be
inimical to him. Lady Frances was not in her way,--and therefore
was open to depreciation and dislike without wounds to her
conscience; and then, though Hampstead was abominable because of
his Republicanism, his implied treason, and blasphemy, yet he was
entitled to some excuse as being a man. These things were abominable
no doubt in him, but more pardonably abominable than they would be in
a woman. Lady Frances had never declared herself to be a Republican
or a disbeliever, much less a rebel,--as, indeed, had neither Lord
Hampstead. In the presence of her stepmother she was generally silent
on matters of political or religious interest. But she was supposed
to sympathise with her brother, and was known to be far from properly
alive to aristocratic interests. There was never quarre