Her name in the first instance stank in the nostrils of many worthy women. "Named after some dreadful creature in Lord Byron's poems," they remarked.
And if a person favourably inclined to Mrs. Mortomley explained he believed the child was called after Mrs. Werner, and that secondly the name was that of a heroine in one of Edgar Poe's poems, they answered,
"The name is suitable enough when given to a Lord's daughter, but Mr. Mortomley is not a Lord, and I hope, Mr.——" this severely, "you do not advocate having the heroines of French and German poets introduced into English homes."
At which crass ignorance Mr.——bowed his head and confessed himself conquered.
Whilst Lenore, unconscious of disapprobation and offence, grew and was happy, a very impersonation of childish beauty and grace, and all the time trouble was coming. A cloud no bigger than a man's hand hovered in the horizon during the first happy years of her life, betokening a hurricane which ultimately broke over Homewood, and swept it away from her father's possession.
CHAPTER VIII.
A DEAD FAINT.
By reason of favourable winds and propitious currents Mrs. Mortomley had almost sailed out of sight of those heavily-freighted merchant ships which hold on one accustomed course too calmly to suit the vagaries of such craft as she, when the death of Richard Halling and arrival of his son and daughter at Homewood threw her once again amongst people who were never likely to take kindly to or be desired by her.
Miss Halling was engaged to a middle-aged, or, indeed, elderly gentleman, who stood high in the estimation of City folks, and who himself had the highest opinion possible of individuals who, after making fortunes on Change, in Mincing Lane, or any other typical London Eldorado, did not turn their backs on the place where they gained their money as if ashamed of it, but were content to associate with their equals, and felt as much "honoured by an invitation to the Mansion House as dukes and duchesses might to an invitation to the Court of St. James's."
This was literally Mr. Dean's style of conversation, and the reader who has been good enough to follow this story so far may comprehend the favour it found with Mrs. Mortomley. He had a comfortable old-fashioned house situated in the midst of good grounds. His gardens were well kept up; but were a weariness, if not to him, at least to Dolly, by reason of his being unable to find honest men to till the ground and his perpetual lamentations concerning the shortcomings of those he did employ.