naturally exasperated as they were at the waste of their great heiress on an American painter.
He rides well; and this was a great and unexpected merit in the eyes of the men. Occasionally he and his wife go out with the hounds; but more often they mount their horses together, either very early or very late in the day, when the light is waning in the studio. Her life is a very full one. The care of her children—three have been born to her in those seven years; the direction of affairs on her property; the active interest she takes in the welfare of the town, and especially of the "hands" employed in her late father's factory, occupy much of her time at Whiteburn. She has little left for painting; but you may occasionally find her standing at an easel in a corner of the big atelier, and the master comes, as he did more than seven years ago, and criticizes her work.
It is a hospitable house; and yet they are very often alone together, which Baring retains enough of his old nature greatly to prefer to a party, however congenial its elements. Among the yearly guests, however, a man never fails, whom Alaric has grown to regard with real friendship, Lord Robert Elton. His portrait of the Conservative Member was one of Baring's most successful works; the ugliness, indeed, unmitigated, but the likeness speaking. Elizabeth, with a woman's match-making proclivity, is always trying to find a suitable wife for the man who has remained one of her warmest friends. But as yet she has not succeeded in persuading him to offer his hand to any of the attractive young women, well endowed, whom she has brought to his notice.
Mr. Twisden is still alive, but the business of the firm
