For one thing, her husband, now a man beyond sixty, was rapidly losing the little wits he had possessed. His life was to all appearance most prosperous. To the envy of many, he had made much money through the railway speculations of the preceding decade; and by material standard of the time should have been supremely happy. But he drank and over-ate himself, and his self-indulgences in these and other ways made him gouty and diseasedly fat. His life had thus become a misery to himself and to all around him, even before he had become really old; and now his memory was failing him, a sottish stupidity was stealing over his brain, so that it was with much difficulty that his wife could rouse him to attend to the most necessary affairs of his estates. Peevish and ill-conditioned when in pain, stupified with wine when well, and at all times of a dreary vacuity of mind, this pillar of the State, wielder of men's votes, arbiter of parish fates and men's fortunes, was not a lovable man to live with. To outsiders he might be an object of pity or scorn; but to his wife! Ah, well, the servants said she looked worried. Let it pass. And yet had this been all she might have been in a fashion happy, for she could turn off much of the ill-humour of her husband on his servants by simply avoiding him. Other troubles, however, were coming thick upon her, and making her look as old as the Squire, although she was nigh ten years younger. Three children of the five she had borne were alive--two daughters and a son. Of course the son, being also the heir, was made much of, fawned on by mother and menial alike, and equally, of course, he grew up a remarkable creature. Who has not known such without longing for a whip of scorpions, and a strong arm to wield it? One daughter had married a soldier--a showy man of good family but small fortune, who sold out, became stock-gambler, and bankrupt in the brief space of eighteen months; and then bolted to Australia to try sheep-farming with a few hundreds given him by his friends to get rid of him. He had left his wife and three children to the care of his mother-in-law. The eldest daughter--eldest also of the family--was slightly deformed, and had never left home, though some poor curates had cast longing looks at her, hoping perhaps, that the money and influence she would have might be the means of bringing them preferment. But they were not men of family, and Lady Harriet would have none of them. The deformed daughter was left otherwise to her own devices; and was probably the happiest in the house, as she certainly was the gentlest. These were small troubles too, and Lady Harriet could not afford to make herself long unhappy over them; but it was otherwise with those of her son.