They sit by their firesides in dignified attitudes, impressively, luxuriously inert.

Their whole being is a religious protest against the spirit of business.
But the restlessness of the times has seized upon the other families, the Pooleys, the Gardners, the Eliotts, younger by a century at least.

They utilise the perfect peace for the cultivation of their intellects.
Every Thursday, towards half-past three, a wave of agreeable expectation, punctual, periodic, mounts on the stillness and stirs it.

Thursday is Mrs.Eliott's day.
The Eliotts belong to the old high merchant-families, the aristocracy of trade, whose wealth is mellowed and beautified by time.

Three centuries met in Mrs.Eliott's drawing-room, harmonised by the gentle spirit of the place.