little there may
be to gratify a polite and refined taste, at my house, Chesney Wold.«
    »You are exceedingly obliging, Sir Leicester, and on behalf of those ladies
(who are present) and for myself, I thank you very much.«
    »It is possible, Mr. Jarndyce, that the gentleman to whom, for the reasons I
have mentioned I refrain from making further allusion - it is possible, Mr.
Jarndyce, that that gentleman may have done me the honour so far as to
misapprehend my character, as to induce you to believe that you would not have
been received by my local establishment in Lincolnshire with that urbanity, that
courtesy, which its members are instructed to show to all ladies and gentlemen
who present themselves at that house. I merely beg to observe, sir, that the
fact is the reverse.«
    My guardian delicately dismissed this remark without making any verbal
answer.
    »It has given me pain, Mr. Jarndyce,« Sir Leicester weightily proceeded. »I
assure you, sir, it has given - Me - pain - to learn from the housekeeper at
Chesney Wold, that a gentleman who was in your company in that part of the
county, and who would appear to possess a cultivated taste for the Fine Arts,
was likewise deterred, by some such cause, from examining the family pictures
with that leisure, that attention, that care, which he might have desired to
bestow upon them, and which some of them might possibly have repaid.« Here he
produced a card, and read, with much gravity and a little trouble, through his
eye-glass, »Mr. Hirrold, - Herald - Harold - Skampling - Skumpling - I beg your
pardon, - Skimpole.«
    »This is Mr. Harold Skimpole,« said my guardian, evidently surprised.
    »Oh!« exclaimed Sir Leicester, »I am happy to meet Mr. Skimpole, and to have
the opportunity of tendering my personal regrets. I hope, sir, that when you
again find yourself in my part of the county, you will be under no similar sense
of restraint.«
    »You are very obliging, Sir Leicester Dedlock. So encouraged, I shall
certainly give myself the pleasure and advantage of another visit to your
beautiful house. The owners of such places as Chesney Wold,« said Mr. Skimpole,
with his usual happy and easy air, »are public benefactors. They are good enough
to maintain a number of delightful objects for the admiration and pleasure of us
poor men; and not to reap all the admiration and pleasure