"Well," said Vargrave, "and where is it? My poor uncle was after De Clifford's estate, but the title was not good." "Oh! this--is much--much--much fi-fi-finer; famous investment--but rather far off--in--in the north, Li-Li-Lisle Court." "Lisle Court! Why, does not that belong to Colonel Maltravers?" "Yes. It is, indeed, quite, I may say, a secret-yes--really--a se-se-secret--not in the market yet--not at all--soon snapped up." "Humph! Has Colonel Maltravers been extravagant?" "No; but he does not--I hear--or rather Lady--Julia--so I'm told, yes, indeed--does not li-like--going so far, and so they spend the winter in Italy instead. Yes--very odd--very fine place." Lumley was slightly acquainted with the elder brother of his old friend,--a man who possessed some of Ernest's faults,--very proud, and very exacting, and very fastidious; but all these faults were developed in the ordinary commonplace world, and were not the refined abstractions of his younger brother. Colonel Maltravers had continued, since he entered the Guards, to be thoroughly the man of fashion, and nothing more. But rich and well-born, and highly connected, and thoroughly _a la mode_ as he was, his pride made him uncomfortable in London, while his fastidiousness made him uncomfortable in the country. He was _rather_ a great person, but he wanted to be a _very_ great person. This he was at Lisle Court; but that did not satisfy him. He wanted not only to be a very great person, but a very great person among very great persons--and squires and parsons bored him. Lady Julia, his wife, was a fine lady, inane and pretty, who saw everything through her husband's eyes. He was quite master _chez lui_, was Colonel Maltravers! He lived a great deal abroad; for on the Continent his large income seemed princely, while his high character, thorough breeding, and personal advantages, which were remarkable, secured him a greater position in foreign courts than at his own. Two things had greatly disgusted him with Lisle Court,--trifles they might be with others, but they were not trifles to Cuthbert Maltravers; in the first place, a man who had been his father's attorney, and who was the very incarnation of coarse unrepellable familiarity, had bought an estate close by the said Lisle Court, and had, _horresco referens_, been made a baronet! Sir Gregory Gubbins took precedence of Colonel Maltravers! He could not ride out but he met Sir Gregory; he could not dine out but he had the pleasure of walking behind Sir Gregory's bright blue coat with its bright brass buttons. In his last visit to Lisle Court, which he had then crowded with all manner of fine people, he had seen--the very first morning after his arrival--seen from the large window of his state saloon, a great staring white, red, blue, and gilt thing, at the end of the stately avenue planted by Sir Guy Maltravers in honour of the victory over the Spanish armada. He looked in mute surprise, and everybody else