“Tut,” said he, wrenching himself violently away from the benign influence, “it was not to sympathize with Hector, but to conquer with Achilles, that Alexander of Macedon kept Homer under his pillow. Such would be the true use of books to him who has the practical world to subdue; let parsons and women construe it otherwise as they may?”
And the Principle of Evil descended again upon the intellect, from which the guide beneficence was gone.
CHAPTER X.
Randal rose at the sound of the first breakfast bell, and on the staircase met Mrs. Hazeldean. He gave her back the book; and as he was about to speak, she beckoned to him to follow her into a little morning-room appropriated to herself. No boudoir of white and gold, with pictures by Watteau, but lined with large walnut-tree presses that held the old heir-loom linen strewed with lavender—stores for the housekeeper, and medicines for the poor.
Seating herself on a large chair in this sanctum, Mrs. Hazeldean looked formidably at home.
“Pray,” said the lady, coming at once to the point, with her usual straightforward candor, “what is all this you have been saying to my husband as to the possibility of Frank’s marrying a foreigner?”
Randal.—“Would you be as averse to such a notion as Mr. Hazeldean is?”
Mrs. hazeldean.—“You ask me a question, instead of answering mine.”
Randal was greatly put out in his fence by these rude thrusts. For indeed he had a double purpose to serve—first thoroughly to know if Frank’s marriage with a woman like Madame di Negra would irritate the Squire sufficiently to endanger the son’s inheritance; and, secondly, to prevent Mr. and Mrs. Hazeldean believing seriously that such a marriage was to be apprehended, lest they should prematurely address