The foster brothers Author:James Payn Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IH. S1r Toby stepped down-stairs quite radiant; his victory was complete, and had been effected with less loss to the other side than he had antic... more »ipated. " Now," thought he, " there's only this woman Groves to be got over, and the thing is done." " Only those three fellows on the bridge to manage," was probably Lars Porsena's disparaging remark, when he stood with his great host so close to the gates of the Eternal City, but upon the other side of the water; and yet everybody knows, thanks to Lord Macaulay, how that business came off. The worthy knight was as totally unprepared for the pluck and mettle exhibited by his antagonist, as was the Tuscan prince in the famous case of Codes and Two Others. He had no notion of the Roman spirit of independence which animated that wife of the Chartist tailor in Rag Street; any such thing was quite beyond Sir Toby's experience, nor is it indeed common among the female sex in England. The voter's wife is unquestionably a more cringing and unprincipled person than the voter;—and " I'm sure we can't afford to displease our landlord," is an argument almost always assisted by the silvery voice of women. They have indeed but very little regard for political conscience at all, nor even for political opinion, although to be sure there is a certain vague preference for " the gentlemanly interest," which pervades all ranks of them. We tremble to think of what nearly every woman of the middle classes—barristers' wives, rectors' wives, merchant princes' wives (more than any)—will willingly do to oblige a titled person. 'We have seen them treat very scornfully good affectionate husbands—become ashamed of their own mothers—snub at their own dinner-table their dearest and oldest friends—talk mincingly upon fashionable matters which they...« less