Shirley

uncle's prophetic soul anticipated a splendid future: he already scented the time afar off when, with nonchalant air, and left foot nursed on his right knee, he should be able to make dashingly-familiar allusion to his ›nephew the baronet.‹ Now, his niece dawned upon him no longer ›a mad girl,‹ but a ›most sensible woman.‹ He termed her, in confidential dialogues with Mrs. Sympson, »a truly superior person: peculiar, but very clever.« He treated her with exceeding deference; rose reverently to open and shut doors for her; reddened his face, and gave himself headaches, with stooping to pick up gloves, handkerchiefs, and other loose property, whereof Shirley usually held but insecure tenure. He would cut mysterious jokes about the superiority of woman's wit over man's wisdom; commence obscure apologies for the blundering mistake he had committed respecting the generalship, the tactics, of »a personage not a hundred miles from Fieldhead:« in short, he seemed elate as any »midden-cock on pattens.«
    His niece viewed his manœuvres, and received his innuendoes, with phlegm: apparently, she did not above half comprehend to what aim they tended. When plainly charged with being the preferred of the baronet, she said, she believed he did like her, and for her part she liked him: she had never thought a man of rank – the only son of a proud, fond mother – the only brother of doting sisters – could have so much goodness, and, on the whole, so much sense.
    Time proved, indeed, that Sir Philip liked her. Perhaps he had found in her that »curious charm« noticed by Mr. Hall. He sought her presence more and more; and, at last, with a frequency that attested it had become to him an indispensable stimulus. About this time, strange feelings hovered round Fieldhead; restless hopes and haggard anxieties haunted some of its rooms. There was an unquiet wandering of some of the inmates among the still fields round the mansion; there was a sense of expectancy that kept the nerves strained.
    One thing seemed clear. Sir Philip was not a man to be despised: he was amiable; if not highly intellectual, he was intelligent. Miss Keeldar could not affirm of him – what she had so bitterly affirmed of Sam Wynne – that his feelings were blunt, his tastes coarse, and his manners vulgar. There was sensibility in his nature; there was a very real, if not a very discriminating, love of the arts; there was the English gentleman in all his deportment: as to his lineage and wealth, both were, of course, far beyond her claims.
    His appearance had at first elicited some laughing, though not ill-natured, remarks from the merry Shirley. It was boyish: his features were plain and slight; his hair sandy; his stature insignificant. But she soon checked her sarcasm on this point; she would even fire up if any one else made uncomplimentary allusion thereto. He had »a pleasing countenance,« she affirmed; »and there was that in his heart which was better than three Roman noses, than the locks of Absalom, or the proportions of Saul.« A spare and rare shaft she still reserved for his unfortunate poetic propensity: but, even here, she would tolerate no irony save her own.
    In short, matters had reached a point which seemed fully to warrant an observation made about this time by Mr. Yorke, to the tutor, Louis.
    »Yond' brother Robert of yours seems to me to be either a fool or a madman. Two months ago, I could have sworn he had the game all in his own hands; and there he runs the country, and quarters himself up in London for weeks together, and by the time he comes back, he'll find himself checkmated. Louis, ›There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; but, once let slip, never returns again.‹ I'd write to Robert, if I were you, and remind him of that.«
    »Robert had views on Miss Keeldar?« inquired Louis, as if the idea were new to him.
    »Views I suggested to him myself, and views he might have realized, for she liked him.«
    »As a neighbour?«
    »As more than that. I have seen her change countenance and colour at the mere mention of his name. Write to the lad, I say, and tell him to come home. He is a finer gentleman than this bit of a baronet, after all.«
    »Does it not strike you, Mr. Yorke, that for a mere penniless adventurer to aspire to a rich woman's hand is presumptuous – contemptible?«
    »Oh! if you are for high notions, and double-refined sentiment, I've naught to say. I'm a