Dora Thorne | Page 6

the fine arts.
Earlescourt was almost overcrowded with pictures, statues, and works
of art.
Son succeeded father, inheriting with title and estate the same kindly,
simple dispositions and the same tastes, until Rupert Earle, nineteenth
baron, with whom our story opens, became Lord Earle. Simplicity and
kindness were not his characteristics. He was proud, ambitious, and
inflexible; he longed for the time when the Earles should become
famous, when their name should be one of weight in council. In early
life his ambitious desires seemed about to be realized. He was but
twenty when he succeeded his father, and was an only child, clever,
keen and ambitious. In his twenty-first year he married Lady Helena
Brooklyn, the daughter of one of the proudest peers in Britain. There
lay before him a fair and useful life. His wife was an elegant,
accomplished woman, who knew the world and its ways--who had,
from her earliest childhood, been accustomed to the highest and best
society. Lord Earle often told her, laughingly, that she would have
made an excellent embassadress--her manners were so bland and
gracious; she had the rare gift of appearing interested in every one and
in everything.
With such a wife at the head of his establishment, Lord Earle hoped for
great things. He looked to a prosperous career as a statesman; no
honors seemed to him too high, no ambition too great. But a hard fate
lay before him. He made one brilliant and successful speech in
Parliament--a speech never forgotten by those who heard it, for its
astonishing eloquence, its keen wit, its bitter satire. Never again did his
voice rouse alike friend and foe. He was seized with a sudden and
dangerous illness which brought him to the brink of the grave. After a
long and desperate struggle with the "grim enemy," he slowly
recovered, but all hope of public life was over for him. The doctors said

he might live to be a hale old man if he took proper precautions; he
must live quietly, avoid all excitement, and never dream again of
politics.
To Lord Earle this seemed like a sentence of exile or death. His wife
tried her utmost to comfort and console him, but for some years he
lived only to repine at his lot. Lady Helena devoted herself to him.
Earlescourt became the center and home of famous hospitality; men of
letters, artists, and men of note visited there, and in time Lord Earle
became reconciled to his fate. All his hopes and his ambitions were
now centered in his son, Ronald, a fine, noble boy, like his father in
every respect save one. He had the same clear-cut Saxon face, with
clear, honest eyes and proud lips, the same fair hair and stately carriage,
but in one respect they differed. Lord Earle was firm and inflexible; no
one ever thought of appealing against his decision or trying to change
his resolution. If "my lord" had spoken, the matter was settled. Even
Lady Helena knew that any attempt to influence him was vain. Ronald,
on the contrary, could be stubborn, but not firm. He was more easily
influenced; appeal to the better part of his nature, to his affection or
sense of duty, was seldom made in vain.
No other children gladdened the Lord Earle's heart, and all his hopes
were centered in his son. For the second time in his life great hopes and
ambitions rose within him. What he had not achieved his son would do;
the honor he could no longer seek might one day be his son's. There
was something almost pitiful in the love of the stern, disappointed man
for his child. He longed for the time when Ronald would be of age to
commence his public career. He planned for his son as he had never
planned for himself.
Time passed on, and the heir of Earlescourt went to Oxford, as his
father had done before him. Then came the second bitter
disappointment of Lord Earle's life. He himself was a Tory of the old
school. Liberal principles were an abomination to him; he hated and
detested everything connected with Liberalism. It was a great shock
when Ronald returned from college a "full- fledged Liberal." With his
usual keenness he saw that all discussion was useless.

"Let the Liberal fever wear out," said one of his friends; "you will find,
Lord Earle, that all young men favor it. Conservatism is the result of
age and experience. By the time your son takes a position in the world,
he will have passed through many stages of Liberalism."
Lord Earle devoutly believed it. When the first shock of his
disappointment was over, Ronald's political zeal began to amuse him.
He liked to see the boy earnest in everything. He smiled when