Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite. Anthony Trollope

George. He feared that Emily might like him!—by no means hoped it. And yet he vacillated, and allowed Cousin George to come to the house, only because Cousin George must become, on his death, the head of the Hotspurs.

      Cousin George came on one Sunday, came on another Sunday, dined at the house, and was of course asked to the ball. But Lady Elizabeth had so arranged her little affairs that when Cousin George left Bruton Street on the evening of the dinner party he and Emily had never been for two minutes alone together since the family had come up to London. Lady Elizabeth herself liked Cousin George, and, had an edict to that effect been pronounced by her husband, would have left them alone together with great maternal satisfaction. But she had been told that it was not to be so, and therefore the young people had never been allowed to have opportunities. Lady Elizabeth in her very quiet way knew how to do the work of the world that was allotted to her. There had been other balls, and there had been ridings in the Park, and all the chances of life which young men, and sometimes young women also, know so well how to use; but hitherto Cousin George had kept, or had been constrained to keep, his distance.

      "I want to know, Mamma," said Emily Hotspur, the day before the ball, "whether Cousin George is a black sheep or a white sheep?"

      "What do you mean, my dear, by asking such a question as that?"

      "I don't like black sheep. I don't see why young men are to be allowed to be black sheep; but yet you know they are."

      "How can it be helped?"

      "People should not notice them, Mamma."

      "My dear, it is a most difficult question—quite beyond me, and I am sure beyond you. A sheep needn't be black always because he has not always been quite white; and then you know the black lambs are just as dear to their mother as the white."

      "Dearer, I think."

      "I quite agree with you, Emily, that in general society black sheep should be avoided."

      "Then they shouldn't be allowed to come in," said Emily. Lady Elizabeth knew from this that there was danger, but the danger was not of a kind which enabled her specially to consult Sir Harry.