The Three Sisters

ecessary, for the same reason. He was not long in finding out that he owed his unpopularity in a great measure to his marriage. To the curious observer this consciousness of h

dearest friend, he might have been anything he pleased. Miss Batchelor of Meriden would have proved a still more powerful ally than Sir Peter. She would have been as ambitious for him as he could have been for himself. By joining the estates of Thorneytoft and Meriden, Nevill Tyson, Esquire, would have become one of the largest land-owners in Leicestershire, when in all probability he would have known the joy of representing his coun

here other men maunder and drivel. His tongue was tipped with fire and his pen with vitriol. Looking about him for a worthy antagonist, he singled out Smedley, M.D., a local practitioner given over to two ideals-sanitation and reform. Needless to say, for sanitation and reform Tyson cared not a hang. It was a stand-up fight between the man of facts and the man of letters. Smedley was solid and imperturbable; he stood firm on his facts, and defended himself with figures. Tyson, a master of literary strategy, was alert and ubiquitous. Having driven Smedley into a tangled maze of controversy, Tyson

vill Tyson and Miss Batchelor. "At this rate," said the lady of Meriden,

ctions; Tyson had come in from Drayton, and was glancing as usual at the visiting cards on the hall table. On the top of the dusty pile that had accumulated in the days of his wife's illness there was ac

ked us up again. He couldn't v

about the

ught you

im in the drive an

ything about my let

on hesitated. "

did he

t was rather a pity you'd

s impert

awing-room. She gave him some tea to keep him quiet; he drank it in passionate gul

ngwood! The fellow's a publican, likewise a sinner,

vill Tyson, trying h

ld do the same for his Queen's face any day-if he got the chance, I'd like to sound Mor

t. I remember now. I think he's g

but he liked to "mix himself up" in them to give himself local color; and now it seemed that he had taken th

aid he savagely. "I suppose the usual

d Mrs. Nevill Ty

't he give her a stoma

more behind all this than mere party feeling. Sir Peter was right: that electioneering business was Tyson's third great mistake. It proved, what nobody would have been very much aware of, that Nevill Tyson, Esquire, had next to no standing in the county. As a public man he was worse off than he would have been as a harmless private individual. He could never have been found out if he had only stayed quietly at home and devoted himself to the cultivation of orchids, in the manner of old Tyson, who had managed to hoodwink himself and his neighbors into the belief that he was a country gentleman. As it was, for such a clever fellow Tyson had displayed stupidity that was almost ridiculous. For nobody ever denied that he was a clever fellow, that he could have been anything that he liked; in fact, he had been most things already. Anything he liked-except a country gentleman. The country gentleman, like the poet, is born, not made; and it was a question if Tyson had ever been a gentleman at all. He had all the accidents of the thing,

iety was his protection. Once the elections were over, gossip was too busy with the wife to pay much attention to the husband. He was considered to have extinguished him

tion, much less censure. But, unless she combined the virtue of an angel with the manners of a district visitor, and contrived to walk circumspectly across the quicksands that separated her from "good society," a daughter of Mrs. Wilcox

beginning to go at the corners. We know Stanistreet's opinion of Sir Peter's taste in dress; it was only a coarser expression of the views held by his wif

pital suit

eful," said she. "

y wear a

d itself to all the little eccentricities of his figure. After five years there is a certain intimacy between a man and his suit. However, there was no blinking the fact-the suit was doomed. Sir

all round him, while Mr. Vance stood by, no

, Vance, since you made my firs

nd supporting himself by a finger-ti

long ago as th

ou've been here more

n his memory, and was a st

s charged with melancholy and delicate regre

you measured me

ssibilit

ing support in a very painful situation. It was agony for h

then, sir, serving

r Peter with proof, but he was too pol

e mechanically. His mind no longer followed Vance; it

y they know that name prett

shing a little at his own thoug

me family, t

little startled this tim

son left 'em and set up by himself in the wholesale business in Birmingham. He made a mint

r thirty years, he had made them for twenty-five

good property. And a very g

peculiar,

e old man myself, but he was very generally respec

a direct question, but he was wildly cur

mile spread over

s father chucked the business, and set up a

dee

; sharp as needles. But they couldn't brin

ough for him, I

n his time. He'd got ideas in his head, too. No

t always

ascal. And just when he was at the top of the tree, as yo

r Peter was anxious to throw a vaguely cha

. Anyhow he left a pile of debts behind him,

l Tyson was a great man in his customer's county, and chilled a little by Sir Peter's manner, checked the flow of his reminiscence

Peter, a little loftily. H

he came to Thorneytoft. Those ten years might be considered a season of purification before entering on his solemn career as a country gentleman. Old Tyson had cut himself adrift from his own origins. And as the years went on he wrapped himself closer in his impenetrable garment of respectability; he was only Mr. Tyson, the gentle cultivator of orchids, until, gradually receding from view, he became a presence, a my

n, in his brilliant oratorical way, has intimated that you don't ride straight, and that

id more than sm

aid the golden eggs?" (Ha, ha

It lasted him all the way from St. Pancras to Drayton Parva. Sir Peter did not greatly care for women's gossip; but he liked his own. And really the provocation had been intense. It

s a little hard to expect him to hide his light under a bushel. He could have buried scandal in his breast forever, but to put an extinguisher on the sparks of his playful fancy-no, these things are beyond a man's control. And as the idea of the goose, with all its subtle

confidence). So did everybody whom Miss Batchelor may or may not have confided in. And wh