Page:The Portrait of a Lady (1882).djvu/66

58 58 THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. Church, settled in the parsonage at Lockleigh, which was rather a largeish parish, and was an excellent fellow, in spite of his thinking differently from himself on every conceivable topic. And then Lord Warburton mentioned some of the opinions held by his brother, which were opinions that Isabel had often heard expressed and that she supposed to be entertained by a consider- able portion of the human family. Many of them, indeed, she supposed she had held herself, till he assured her that she was quite mistaken, that it was really impossible, that she had doubtless imagined she entertained them, but that she might depend that, if she thought them over a little, she would find there was nothing in them. When she answered that she had already thought several of them over very attentively, he declared that she was only another example of what he had often been struck with the fact that, of all the people in the world, the Americans were the most grossly superstitious. They were rank Tories and bigots, every one of them ; there were no conserva- tives like American conservatives. Her uncle and her cousin were there to prove it ; nothing could be more mediaeval than many of their views ; they had ideas that people in England now-a-days were ashamed to confess to ; and they had the impud- ence, moreover, said his lordship, laughing, to pretend they know more about the needs and dangers of this poor dear stupid old England than he who was born in it and owned a considerable part of it the more shame to him ! From all of which Isabel gathered that Lord Warburton was a nobleman of the newest pattern, a reformer, a radical, a contemner of ancient ways. His other brother, who was in the army in India, was rather wild and pig-headed, and had not been of much use as yet but to make debts for Warburton to pay one of the most pr.-cious privileges of an elder brother. " I don't think I will pay any more," said Warburton; u he lives a monstrous deal better than I do, enjoys nnheard-of luxuries, and thinks himself a much finer gentleman than I. As I am a consistent radical, I go in only for equality ; I don't go in for the superiority of the younger brothers." Two of his four sisters, the second and fourth, were married, one of them having done very well, as they said, the other only so-so. The husband of the elder,* Lord Haycock, was a very good fellow, but unfortunately a horrid Tory ; and his wife, like all good English wives, was worse than her husband. The other had espoused a smallish squire in Norfolk, and, though she was married only the other day, ha-1 already five children. This information, and much more, Lord Warburton imparted to his young American listener, taking pains to make many things