The modest home his progenitors had, in the good old days when that which belonged to everybody could be appropriated by any-body, made for themselves on the outskirts of Epping Forest, became a centre of interest to an extent the owner never could have conceived possible. He did not trouble himself about the affairs of his neighbours. That they should concern themselves about his, never entered his mind.
It may be safe enough, if not altogether pleasant, for a great millionaire or a great lady to be subject to the curious gaze of the multitude; but for a business man doing a moderate trade, or for a wife in the middle rank of society, it proves a trying and often dangerous ordeal.
All unconsciously Mortomley pursued his way, with many a scrutinizing eye marking his progress. Not quite so unconsciously Mrs. Mortomley pursued her way, making fresh enemies as she moved along.
Even her child grew to be a source of offence. "It's not her fault poor little thing!" the mothers of pert, snub-nosed, inquisitive, precocious snoblings would complacently remark, "properly brought up she might be something very different."
Which, indeed, to say truth, was not desirable. Let the mother's deficiencies be what they might, it would have been difficult, I think, to suggest improvement in the child.
She had all the Mortomley regularity of features, light brown hair, flecked with gold, that came likewise from her father's family; but her eyes were the eyes of Dolly—only darker, larger, more liquid; and her vivacity, her peals of delighted laughter, her happy ability to amuse herself for hours together, came from some forgotten Gerace. There are families in which few traditions are preserved, who have left no memory behind them, but still lived long enough to bequeath the great gift of contentment to some who were to come after.
Why then was Lenore accounted an offence? A sentence from "Imperfect Sympathies," may, perhaps, explain this better than I can.
Elia says, "I have been trying all my life to like—" For the present purpose it is not needful to extract more closely,—"And am obliged to desist from the experiment in despair. They cannot like me, and in truth I never knew one of that nation who attempted to do it."
In a foot note to the same essay, he puts his idea even more clearly:
"There may be individuals born and constellated so opposite to another individual nature, that the same sphere cannot hold them. I have met with my moral antipodes, and can believe the story of two persons meeting (who never saw one another before), and instantly fighting."