When he was known to have made a bad book for the Leger or the Great Ebor, his friends openly expressed their contempt for his mental powers; but no one despised him because an expensive university training had made him nothing more than a first-rate oarsman, a fair billiard-player, and a distinguished thrower of the hammer. He was just what a country gentleman should be in the popular idea--handsome, broad-shouldered, long-limbed, with the fist and biceps of a gladiator, and a brain totally unburdened by the scholiast's dry-as-dust rubbish: sharp and keen enough where the things that interested him were in question, and never caring to look beyond them. To this gentleman Lady Laura introduced Clarissa. "Fred, this is Miss Lovel--Clarissa Lovel--and you and she are to like each other very much, if you please. This is my husband, Clarissa, who cares more for the cultivation of short-horns--whatever kind of creatures those brutes may be--and ugly little shaggy black Highland cattle, than for my society, a great deal; so you will see very little of him, I daresay, while you are at the Castle. In London he is obliged to be shut-up with me now and then; though, as he attends nearly all the race-meetings, I don't see very much of him even there; but here he escapes me altogether." "Upon my word, Laura--upon my word, you know, Miss Lovel, there's not a syllable of truth in it," exclaimed the gentleman with the light whiskers. "My wife's always illuminating old Missals, or rending Italian, or practising the harmonium, or writing out lists of things for her Dorcas club, or something of that sort; and a fellow only feels himself in the way if he's hanging about her. She's the busiest woman in the world. I don't believe the prime minister gets through more work or receives more letters than she does. And she answers 'em all too, by Jove; she's like the great Duke of Wellington." "Do you happen to take a lively interest in steam-ploughs and threshing-machines, and that kind of thing, Clarissa?" asked Lady Laura. "I'm afraid not. I never even saw a steam-plough; and I believe if I were to see one, I should think it a most unpicturesque object." "I am sorry to hear that. Fred would have been so delighted with you, if you'd shown agricultural proclivities. We had a young lady from Westmoreland here last year who knew an immense deal about farming. She was especially great upon pigs, I believe, and quite fascinated Fred by tramping about the home farm with him in thick boots. I was almost jealous. But now let me introduce you to some of my friends, Clarissa."