‘So be it, since you will have it so,’ said Mrs. Hilliard, shrugging her shoulders. ‘But my theory of real good looks is that they should rise superior to every vicissitude. Oliver Constable doth profess too much. I do not say he is intentionally hypocritical, but I imagine he has been nettled by his connection with trade, and now he is going to brazen it out, and thrust it down people’s throats, forcing his fellow-creatures to own that there is nothing like trade in the end. Very likely, too, he is not averse to drawing more money from money-making concerns. What more natural than that he should have inherited the trading spirit, and be still keener in business than his father was? Only he ought not to assume a cloak of philanthropy.’ Mrs. Hilliard deprecated enthusiasm as stoutly as if she had been a great diplomatist, and distrusted every profession which had not in it a large leaven of openly proclaimed self-interest and cynicism, while in her cheerful pessimism she treated the reverse as a good joke. ‘The game is not worth the candle,’ said Catherine, letting her heavily weighted eyelids drop. ‘It is far worse than that. Oliver Constable’s crotchet will not merely come to grief like other crotchets, it will serve to unsettle the young man. It will cost him the fair start in life he might have commanded, and of which he might have made something, if he has a tithe of the ability which has been liberally attributed to him. Though I laughed at first, and though I cannot help smiling still, at what I foresee of the manifestations of Fan’s wrath, still as an older woman and a relative of the family, however remote, I am sorry. I have sufficient grace left for that,’ said Mrs. Hilliard, with greater seriousness and with some genuine good feeling. Catherine continued to look as if she saw no cause either for joy or sorrow, as if she were drearily impervious to emotion from the actual world outside herself and her books. Catherine’s faith and hope in humanity had reached the lowest ebb. Oliver Constable’s aims would meet with nothing at the Meadows, save ridicule on the one hand, and unbelief on the other. CHAPTER VIII. OLIVER’S PROCLAMATION IN THE MILL AND THE BAKEHOUSE. OLD Peter Constable had been a good master in more senses than one—a better master, inasmuch as he and his servants understood each other, than his son seemed likely to prove. Peter had kept his men long in his service, but it so happened that at this date, from death and other weeders-out of grey-headed workpeople, the men in the mill were comparatively young. The head man, who had been promoted recently, was not older than Oliver himself, and as yet supported such dignity as he had to maintain in a sheepish fashion, while his trumpet still gave forth an uncertain sound. Accordingly, the new master’s announcement, though it excited a good deal of curiosity, drew forth no protest, not even a private one, in this quarter.