THE RESIDENTS 109 



lawns at Fulham ; they have a wealth of pineries and 

 graperies and forcing-pits ; and the appointments of 

 their sumptuous mansions are the most showy that 

 money can procure. But they are lavish in the wrong 

 place, and often parsimonious on trifles. They have a 

 horror of seeming to be done, instead of sometimes 

 submitting to it as a matter of course ; and as their 

 conduct is regarded most critically by humble applicants 

 for their bounty, the occasional refusal of a shilling 

 often effaces a long score of charity. Then their wives 

 and daughters are in a perpetual dilemma, and have 

 either to hold themselves apart in their solitary 

 splendour, or else fall back on the society of the 

 families of the more upsetting farmers, which might 

 prejudice their social status to all time. Altogether, 

 these new arrivals are a disturbing element in the 

 parochial harmony the more so that their settlement 

 is a sign of the times, and that they excite uneasy 

 apprehensions of revolution in the immediate future. 

 For the probability is that in another generation, or 

 even less, the ancient glories of Oakenhurst will have 

 departed, although the influx of bullion and its free 

 circulation may certainly bring material compensation. 



