from you as a favour. You cannot guess how important it is to me to
be on good terms with such a neighbour."

"It is always so in England," said Lucius, after pausing for a while.
"Sir Peregrine is a man of family, and a baronet; of course all the
world, the world of Hamworth that is, should bow down at his feet.
And I too must worship the golden image which Nebuchadnezzar, the
King of Fashion, has set up!"

"Lucius, you are unkind to me."

"No, mother, not unkind; but like all men, I would fain act in such
matters as my own judgment may direct me."

"My friendship with Sir Peregrine Orme has nothing to do with his
rank; but it is of importance to me that both you and I should stand
well in his sight." There was nothing more said on the matter; and
then they got down at the front door, and were ushered through the
low wide hall into the drawing-room.

The three generations of the family were there,--Sir Peregrine, his
daughter-in-law, and the heir. Lucius Mason had been at The Cleeve
two or three times since his return from Germany, and on going there
had always declared to himself that it was the same to him as though
he were going into the house of Mrs. Arkwright, the doctor's widow at
Hamworth,--or even into the kitchen of Farmer Greenwood. He rejoiced
to call himself a democrat, and would boast that rank could have no
effect on him. But his boast was an untrue boast, and he could not
carry himself at The Cleeve as he would have done and did in Mrs.
Arkwright's little drawing-room. There was a majesty in the manner
of Sir Peregrine which did awe him; there were tokens of birth
and a certain grace of manner about Mrs. Orme which kept down his
assumption; and even with young Peregrine he found that though he
might be equal he could by no means be more than equal. He had
learned more than Peregrine Orme, had ten times more knowledge in his
head, had read books of which Peregrine did not even know the names
and probably never would know them; but on his side also young Orme
possessed something which the other wanted. What that something might
be Lucius Mason did not at all understand.

Mrs. Orme got up from her corner on the sofa to greet her friend, and
with a soft smile and two or three all but whispered words led her
forward to the fire. Mrs. Orme was not a woman given to much speech
or endowed with outward warmth of manners, but she could make her few
words go very far; and then the pressure of her hand, when