His
children were now everything to him, and among his children his
son and heir was the chief. From the moment in which he had heard
from Silverbridge that Lady Mabel was chosen he had given himself
up to considering how he might best promote their interests,--how
he might best enable them to live, with that dignity and splendour
which he himself had unwisely despised. That the son who was to
come after him should be worthy of the place assigned to his name
had been, of personal objects, the nearest to his heart. There had
been failures, but still there had been left room for hope. The
boy had been immature at Eton;--but how many unfortunate boys had
become great men! He had disgraced himself by his folly at
college,--but although some lads will be men at twenty, others are
then little more than children. The fruit that ripens the soonest
is seldom the best. Then had come Tifto and the racing mania.
Nothing could be worse than Tifto and racehorses. But from that
evil Silverbridge had seemed to be made free by the very disgust
which the vileness of the circumstance had produced.
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