The offer was pronounced a generous one, and worthy of a blood relation; but James Dalbrook never took advantage of his kinsman’s kindness. His University career was as successful as his progress at the quaint stone grammar school, and his college friends, who were neither dukes nor marquises, but fairly sensible young men, all advised him to apply himself to the higher branch of the law. So James Dalbrook, of Trinity Hall, ate his dinners at the Temple during his last year of undergraduate life, came out seventh wrangler, was called to the Bar, and in due course wore crimson, velvet, and ermine, and became Lord Cheriton, a man whose greatness in somewise overshadowed the small provincial dignity of the house of Matthew Dalbrook, erstwhile head of the family. The Dalbrooks, of Dorchester, had gone upon their way quietly, thriving, respected, but in no wise distinguished. Matthew, junior, had succeeded his father, Matthew, senior, and the firm in Cornhill had been Dalbrook & Son for more than thirty years; and now Theodore, the eldest of a family of five, was Son, and his grandfather, the founder of the firm, was sleeping the sleep of the just in the cemetery outside Dorchester. Lord Cheriton was too wise a man to forget old obligations or to avoid his kindred. There was nothing to be ashamed of in his connection with a thoroughly reputable firm like Dalbrook & Son. They might be provincial, but their name was a synonym for honour and honesty. They had taken as firm root in the land as the county families whose title-deeds and leases, wills and codicils they kept. They were well-bred, well-educated, God-fearing people, with no struggling ambitions, no morbid craving to get upon a higher social level than the status to which their professional position and their means entitled them. They rode and drove good horses, kept good servants, lived in a good house, visited among the county people with moderation, but they made no pretensions to being “smart.” They offered no sacrifices of fortune or self-respect to the modern Moloch—Fashion. There was a younger son called Harrington, destined for the Church, and with advanced views upon church architecture and music; and there were two unmarried daughters, Janet and Sophia, also with advanced views upon the woman’s rights question, and with a sovereign contempt for the standard young lady.