was
light, that there was a strong hand behind them that knew how to pull
them up or put them in the dust, and they learned so much respect and
even love for that hand as never to presume on the fact that it would
not perhaps choose to exert its full power; work was well done; there
was no further trespassing on other precincts; the world was in perfect
order, so far as St. George's administration of it extended. He was,
moreover, a man of distinction; serving, young as he was, four terms in
Congress from a distant district, he was already spoken of again as the
candidate of the immediate vicinity; his advice was sought in a hundred
matters about which he knew nothing at all,--and always given, in spite
of the last-mentioned circumstance; he had a careless, easy way of
taking the life out of a man's mouth, so to speak, and disposing of it
for that man's advantage as he himself pleased, so that the man felt
under an infinite obligation; he had, too, an air with him of such
superiority over the ills of life, such undoubted kingliness, that every
one succumbed and rested gladly on so firm a precedent. Mr. St. George
in this brief time had accepted much hospitality, had won a thousand
friends, and by Christmas had made himself, through his genial strength
to-day and his sardonic sarcasm to-morrow, as thoroughly the autocrat of
all the region as ever Mr. Erne had been. For all that men want is a
master; give them somebody that will lead, and glad enough are they to
follow. But Mr. Erne's supremacy had merely been a matter of birth and
of kindly feeling; Mr. St. George's was, first, because he choose to
have it, and secondly, because nobody was able to refuse it. Marlboro's
masterliness was quite another thing, affected no clusters of men, and
was felt only by those whom he owned, body and soul.

In the mean time, the family seldom saw Mr. St. George, and when they
did, he was so stately that they would have been quite willing to shut
their eyes. They forgot, however, that, when you insist on being
yourself an iceberg, you really cool the air about you. Once, indeed, or
twice, there had been brief, but notable exceptions in his conduct.

A period of heavy rains had just elapsed, and Eloise, weary of
confinement, had gone on the first clear day strolling round the place,
as secure as in a drawing-room, since there was not one of her father's
people but adored her.

"You are going out, Miss Changarnier?" Mr. St. George had r