he garden, and having unbuckled the
saddle-bags, which contained the few things required for so short a
visit, I consigned my horse to his care, and ascended the perron.
The old housekeeper met me in the hall, and conducted me up the great
staircase, showed me into a bedroom prepared for me, and told me that
Mr. Strahan was already waiting dinner for me. I should find him in the
study. I hastened to join him. He began apologizing, very unnecessarily,
for the state of his establishment. He had as yet engaged no new
servants. The housekeeper with the help of a housemaid did all the work.

Richard Strahan at college had been as little distinguishable from other
young men as a youth neither rich nor poor, neither clever nor stupid,
neither handsome nor ugly, neither audacious sinner nor formal saint,
possibly could be.

Yet, to those who understood him well, he was not without some of those
moral qualities by which a youth of mediocre intellect often matures
into a superior man.

He was, as Sir Philip had been rightly informed, thoroughly honest
and upright. But with a strong sense of duty, there was also a certain
latent hardness. He was not indulgent. He had outward frankness with
acquaintances, but was easily roused to suspicion. He had much of the
thriftiness and self-denial of the North countryman, and I have no doubt
that he had lived with calm content and systematic economy on an income
which made him, as a bachelor, independent of his nominal profession,
but would not have sufficed, in itself, for the fitting maintenance of a
wife and family. He was, therefore, still single.

It seems to me even during the few minutes in which we conversed before
dinner was announced, that his character showed a new phase with his new
fortunes. He talked in a grandiose style of the duties of station and
the woes of wealth. He seemed to be very much afraid of spending, and
still more appalled at the idea of being cheated. His temper, too, was
ruffled; the steward had given him notice to quit. Mr. Jeeves, who had
spent the morning with him, had said the steward would be a great loss,
and a steward at once sharp and honest was not to be easily found.

What trifles can embitter the possession of great goods! Strahan had
taken a fancy to the old house; it was conformable to his notions, both
of comfort and pomp, and Sir Philip had expressed a desire that the old
house should be pulled down. Strahan had inspected the plans for the new