quadrille and a country-dance, told stories at supper, and made
humorous quotations from his early readings: if these were Latin, he apologised,
and translated to the ladies; so that a deaf lady-visitor from Duffield kept her
trumpet up continually, lest she should lose any of Mr Jermyn's conversation,
and wished that her niece Maria had been present, who was young and had a good
memory.
    Still the party was smaller than usual, for some families in Treby refused
to visit Jermyn, now that he was concerned for a Radical candidate.
 

                                   Chapter 10

            »He made love neither with roses, nor with apples, nor with locks of
            hair.« -
                                                                     Theocritus.
 
One Sunday afternoon Felix Holt rapped at the door of Mr Lyon's house, although
he could hear the voice of the minister preaching in the chapel. He stood with a
book under his arm, apparently confident that there was some one in the house to
open the door for him. In fact, Esther never went to chapel in the afternoon:
that exercise made her head ache.
    In these September weeks Felix had got rather intimate with Mr Lyon. They
shared the same political sympathies; and though, to Liberals who had neither
freehold nor copy-hold nor leasehold, the share in a county election consisted
chiefly of that prescriptive amusement of the majority known as looking on,
there was still something to be said on the occasion, if not to be done. Perhaps
the most delightful friendships are those in which there is much agreement, much
disputation, and yet more personal liking; and the advent of the
public-spirited, contradictory, yet affectionate Felix, into Treby life, had
made a welcome epoch to the minister. To talk with this young man, who, though
hopeful, had a singularity which some might at once have pronounced heresy, but
which Mr Lyon persisted in regarding as orthodoxy in the making, was like a good
bite to strong teeth after a too plentiful allowance of spoon meat. To cultivate
his society with a view to checking his erratic tendencies was a laudable
purpose; but perhaps if Felix had been rapidly subdued and reduced to
conformity, little Mr Lyon would have found the conversation much flatter.
    Esther had not seen so much of their new acquaintance as her father had. But
she had begun to find him amusing, and also rather irritating to her woman's
love of conquest. He always opposed and criticised her; and besides that, he
looked at her as if he never saw a single detail about her person - quite as if
she were a middle-aged