Isabel Hartly was one—don’t ask which in numerical order, or by which wife—of Captain Hartly’s daughters. She was very pretty in a florid vulgarish way, with her artful-innocent dark eyes, and flashing smiles, and pretty little bustle and frills, and “fresh complexion” and “abounding health.” She was fascinatingly ignorant, even to the none too sophisticated George Augustus. And she had a strength of character superior even to dear Mamma’s, added to a superb, an admirable vitality, which bewitched, bewildered, electrified, the somewhat sluggish and pretty comfortable George Augustus. He had never met any one like her. In fact dear Mamma had never allowed him to meet any one but rather soggy Non-Conformists of mature years, and “nice” youths and maidens of exemplary Non-Conformist stupidity and lifelessness. George Augustus fell horribly in love. He abode at the village inn, which was cheap and pretty comfortable; and he did himself well. On these holidays he had such a mood of exultation (subconscious) in getting away from dear Mamma that he felt like a hero in Bulwer-Lytton. We should say he swanked; probably the early nineties would have said he came the masher. He certainly mashed Isabel. The Hartlys didn’t swank. They made no effort to conceal their poverty or the vulgarity imported into the family by the third (or fourth) Mrs. Hartly. They were fond of pork; and gratefully accepted the gifts of vegetables and fruit which the kind-hearted English country people force on those they know are none too well off. They grew lots of vegetables and fruit themselves; and kept pigs. They made blackberry jam and damson jam, and scoured the country for mushrooms; and the only “drink” ever allowed in the family was Pa Hartly’s “drop o’ grog” secretly consumed after the innumerable children had gone to bed in threes and fours. So it wasn’t hard for George Augustus to swank. He took the Hartlys—even Isabel—in completely. He talked about “my people” and “our place.” He talked about his Profession. He gave them copies of the Non-Conformist tract he had published at fifteen. He gave Ma Hartly a fourteen-pound tin of that expensive (2/3 a pound) tea she had always pined for since they had left Ceylon. He bought fantastic things for Isabel—a coral brooch, a copy of the _Pilgrim’s Progress_ bound in wood from the door of Bunyan’s parish church, a turkey, a year’s subscription to the _Family Herald Supplement_, a new shawl, boxes of 1/6 a pound chocolates, and took her for drives in an open landau smelling of horse-piss and oats. The Hartlys thought he was “rich.” George Augustus was so very comfortable and _exalté_ that he, too, really thought he was “rich.”