ence and the turquoises referred to Mr. Delawarr.
Delawarr Hall was the nearest seat to Etheringhame Castle, and the families had for years run through every possible variety of opposition and alliance. Between the present proprietors there had existed rather civility than cordiality. Lord Etheringhame's opinions were as hereditary as his halls; innovation was moral rebellion; the change of a fashion, a symptom of degeneracy; he would as soon have destroyed his pedigree as his pigtail; and looked on every new patent, whether for a peerage or a pie-dish, as another step to ruin; in short, he held just the reverse of the poet's opinion—with him, not whatever is, but whatever had been, was right.
Sir Walter, on the contrary, was a man of plans and projects: he refurnished his house, and talked of the march of intellect; cut down a plantation of old oaks in search of a lead mine; put in French windows instead of Gothic, on which his mother died of cold, or grief; married his first wife for fancy, and talked of sentiment; his second for money, and talked of liberality, and deprecated vain pride of birth; he lost money by taking shares in a canal,
