The talk of this gentleman ran in an easy flow--revealing an independent habit of mind, and exhibiting a carefully-polished capacity for satirical retort--dreaded and disliked by the present generation.

Personally, he was little and wiry and slim--with a bright white head, and sparkling black eyes, and a wry twist of humor curling sharply at the corners of his lips.

At his lower extremities, he exhibited the deformity which is popularly known as "a club-foot." But he carried his lameness, as he carried his years, gayly.
He was socially celebrated for his ivory cane, with a snuff-box artfully let into the knob at the top--and he was socially dreaded for a hatred of modern institutions, which expressed itself in season and out of season, and which always showed the same, fatal knack of hitting smartly on the weakest place.

Such was Sir Patrick Lundie; brother of the late baronet, Sir Thomas; and inheritor, at Sir Thomas's death, of the title and estates.
Miss Blanche--taking no notice of her step-mother's reproof, or of her uncle's commentary on it--pointed to a table on which croquet mallets and balls were laid ready, and recalled the attention of the company to the matter in hand.
"I head one side, ladies and gentlemen," she resumed.

"And Lady Lundie heads the other.