Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/23

16 earth; and the universal recollection of him and of his unhesitating habit of "setting things straight," probably kept so in awe the calumny-makers, that he produced the miracle of a woman who actually was blameless getting the credit of being so. Usually snow is deemed black, and coal is called swans-down, with that refreshing habit of contrariety which alone saves society from stagnation. It never occurred to her what a tower of strength for her honour was that good-looking, good-tempered, stupid, big brother of her's, who could not spell a trisyllable were it ever so, and was only learned in racing stock and greyhound pedigrees; but she was fond of him in a cool and careless way, as she might have been of a big dog, and was prodigal in gifts to him of great winners and brood mares.

She never went to stay with him at Broomsdon; she disliked his wife, her sister-in-law, and she was always bored to death in English country houses, where the men were out shooting all day, and half asleep all the evening. The country people, the salt of the earth in their own eyes, were