He did not smile when
Penzance passed to the restoration of the ancient church at Mellowdene.
"Restoration" usually meant the tearing away of ancient oaken,
high-backed pews, and the instalment of smug new benches, suggesting
suburban Dissenting chapels, such as the feudal soul revolts at. Neither
did he smile at a reference to the gathering at Dunholm Castle, which
was twelve miles away. Dunholm was the possession of a man who stood for
all that was first and highest in the land, dignity, learning, exalted
character, generosity, honour. He and the late Lord Mount Dunstan had
been born in the same year, and had succeeded to their titles almost at
the same time. There had arrived a period when they had ceased to know
each other. All that the one man intrinsically was, the other man was
not. All that the one estate, its castle, its village, its tenantry,
represented, was the antipodes of that which the other stood for.
The one possession held its place a silent, and perhaps, unconscious
reproach to the other. Among the guests, forming the large house party
which London social news had already recorded in its columns, were great
and honourable persons, and interesting ones, men and women who counted
as factors in all good and dignified things accomplished.
Pages:
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355