He had listened, indeed, during a large part of the last week; and with so much effect, that those histories to which reference has been made, had almost faded from the elder man’s mind. Flixton seemed to him a hearty, manly young fellow, a little boastful and self-assertive perhaps—but remarkably sound. A soldier, who asked nothing better than to put down the rabble rout which was troubling the country; a Tory, of precisely his, Sir Robert’s opinions; the younger son of a peer, and a West Country peer to boot. In fine, a staunch, open-air patrician, with good old-fashioned instincts, and none of that intellectual conceit, none of those cranks, and fads, and follies, which had ruined a man who also might have been Sir Robert’s son-in-law. Well that man, Sir Robert, perhaps because his conscience pricked him at times by suggesting impossible doubts, was still bitterly angry. So angry that, had the Baronet been candid, he must have acknowledged that the Honourable Bob’s main virtue was his unlikeness to Arthur Vaughan; it was in proportion as he differed from the young fellow who had so meanly intrigued to gain his daughter’s affections, that Flixton appeared desirable to the father. Even those histories proved that at any rate he had blood in him; while his loud good-nature, his positiveness, as long as it marched with Sir Robert’s positiveness, his short views, all gained by contrast. “I am glad he is a younger son,” the Baronet thought. “He shall take the old Vermuyden name!” And he lifted his handsome old chin a little higher as he pictured the honours, that even in a changed and worsened England, might cluster about his house. At the worst, and if the Bill passed, he had a seat alternately with the Lansdownes; and in a future, which would know nothing of Lord Lonsdale’s cat-o’-nine-tails, when pocket boroughs would be rare, and great peers and landowners would be left with scarce a representative, much might be done with half a seat. Suddenly, “Damme, Sir Robert,” Flixton cried, “there is the little beauty—hem!—there she is, I think. With your permission I think I’ll join her.” “By all means, by all means,” Sir Robert answered indulgently. “You need not stand on ceremony.” Flixton waited for no more. Perhaps he had no mind to be bored, now that he had gained what he wanted. He hurried after the slim figure with the white floating skirts and the Leghorn hat, which had descended the steps of the house, moved lightly across the lawns—and vanished. He guessed, however, whither she was bound. He knew that she had a liking for walking in the wilderness behind the house; a beech wood which was already beginning to put on its autumn glory. And sure enough, hastening to a point among the smooth grey trunks where three paths met, he discerned her a hundred paces away, walking slowly from him with her eyes raised.