Lady Joan has a very
high opinion of her. There's the bell. Well, I shall tell
Arabella that you mean to put up the steam, and Lady Firebrace
shall keep Jermyn off. And perhaps it is as well you did not
seem too eager at first. Mowbray Castle, my dear fellow, in
spite of its manufactories, is not to be despised. And with a
little firmness, you could keep the people out of your park.
Mowbray could do it, only he has no pluck. He is afraid
people would say he was the son of a footman."
The Duke, who was the father of the Countess de Mowbray, was
also lord lieutenant of the county. Although advanced in
years, he was still extremely handsome; with the most winning
manners; full of amenity and grace. He had been a rou‚ in his
youth, but seemed now the perfect representative of a
benignant and virtuous old age. He was universally popular;
admired by young men, adored by young ladies. Lord de Mowbray
paid him the most distinguished consideration. It was
genuine. However maliciously the origin of his own father
might be represented, nobody could deprive him of that great
fact, his father-in-law; a duke, a duke of a great house who
had intermarried for generations with great houses, one of the
old nobility, and something even loftier.
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