, preaching the poor people in
the hospital to death, visiting the poor at all sorts of strange hours.
Dr Henley actually found one of them, at twelve o'clock at night, in a
miserable lodging-house, filled with the worst description of inmates.
Quite young women, too, and with no mother or elder person to direct
them; but it is the fashion among the attendants at the new chapel to
admire them. This subject has diverted me from what I intended to say
with respect to the young baronet. Your description agrees with all I
have hitherto seen, though I own I expected a Redclyffe Morville to
have more of the "heros de roman", or rather of the grand tragic cast of
figure, as, if I remember right, was the case with this youth's
father, a much finer and handsomer young man. Sir Guy is certainly
gentlemanlike, and has that sort of agreeability which depends on high
animal spirits. I should think him clever, but superficial; and with his
mania for music, he can hardly fail to be merely an accomplished man. In
spite of all you said of the Redclyffe temper, I was hardly prepared to
find it so ready to flash forth on the most inexplicable provocations.
It is like walking on a volcano. I have seen him two or three times draw
himself up, bite his lip, and answer with an effort and a sharpness that
shows how thin a crust covers the burning lava; but I acknowledge that
he has been very civil and attentive, and speaks most properly of what
he owes to you. I only hope he will not be hurt by the possession of so
large a property so early in life, and I have an idea that our good aunt
at Hollywell has done a good deal to raise his opinion of himself. We
shall, of course, show him every civility in our power, and give him the
advantage of intellectual society at our house. His letters are directed
to this place, as you know South Moor Farm is out of the cognizance
of the post. They seem to keep up a brisk correspondence with him from
Hollywell. Few guardians' letters are, I should guess, honoured with
such deepening colour as his while reading one from my uncle. He tells
me he has been calling at Stylehurst; it is a pity, for his sake, that
Colonel Harewood is at home, for the society of those sons is by no
means advisable for him. I can hardly expect to offer him what is likely
to be as agreeable to him as the conversation and amusements of