"When we saw each other for the first time my stepmother and I met necessarily as strangers. We were elaborately polite and we each made a meritorious effort to appear at our ease. On her side she found herself confronted by a young man the new master of the house who looked more like a foreigner than an Englishman--who when he was congratulated (in view of the approaching season) on the admirable preservation of his partridges and pheasants betrayed an utter want of interest in the subject; and who showed no sense of shame in acknowledging that his principal amusements were derived from reading books and collecting insects. How I must have disappointed Mrs. Roylake! and how considerately she hid from me the effect that I had produced!"