In the first place Lord Lufton is not my hero; and in the next place, a man may be very imperfect and yet worth a great deal. A man may be as imperfect as Lord Lufton, and yet worthy of a good mother and a good wife. If not, how many of us are unworthy of the mothers and wives we have! It is my belief that few young men settle themselves down to the work of the world, to the begetting of children, and carving and paying and struggling and fretting for the same, without having first been in love with four or five possible mothers for them, and probably with two or three at the same time. And yet these men are, as a rule, worthy of the excellent wives that ultimately fall to their lot. In this way Lord Lufton had, to a certain extent, been in love with Griselda. There had been one moment in his life in which he would have offered her his hand, had not her discretion been so excellent; and though that moment never returned, still he suffered from some feeling akin to disappointment when he learned that Griselda had been won and was to be worn. He was, then, a dog in the manger, you will say. Well; and are we not all dogs in the manger, more or less actively? Is not that manger-doggishness one of the most common phases of the human heart? But not the less was Lord Lufton truly in love with Lucy Robarts. Had he fancied that any Dumbello was carrying on a siege before that fortress, his vexation would have manifested itself in a very different manner. He could joke about Griselda Grantly with a frank face and a happy tone of voice; but had he heard of any tidings of a similar import with reference to Lucy, he would have been past all joking, and I much doubt whether it would not even have affected his appetite. “Mother,” he said to Lady Lufton a day or two after the declaration of Griselda’s engagement, “I am going to Norway to fish.” “To Norway,—to fish!” “Yes. We’ve got rather a nice party. Clontarf is going, and Culpepper—” “What, that horrid man!” “He’s an excellent hand at fishing;—and Haddington Peebles, and—and—there’ll be six of us altogether; and we start this day week.” “That’s rather sudden, Ludovic.” “Yes, it is sudden; but we’re sick of London. I should not care to go so soon myself, but Clontarf and Culpepper say that the season is early this year. I must go down to Framley before I start—about my horses; and therefore I came to tell you that I shall be there to-morrow.” “At Framley to-morrow! If you could put it off for three days I should be going myself.” But Lord Lufton could not put it off for three days. It may be that on this occasion he did not wish for his mother’s presence at Framley while he was there; that he conceived that he should be more at his ease in giving orders about his stable if he were alone while so employed. At any rate he declined her company, and on the following morning did go down to Framley by himself.