But still there is left a flavour of the character which Thackeray himself tasted when he called his hero a prig.
The two heroines, Lady Castlewood and Beatrix, are mother and daughter, of whom the former is in love with Esmond, and the latter is loved by him.

Fault has been found with the story, because of the unnatural rivalry,--because it has been felt that a mother's solicitude for her daughter should admit of no such juxtaposition.

But the criticism has come, I think, from those who have failed to understand, not from those who have understood, the tale;--not because they have read it, but because they have not read it, and have only looked at it or heard of it.

Lady Castlewood is perhaps ten years older than the boy Esmond, whom she first finds in her husband's house, and takes as a protege; and from the moment in which she finds that he is in love with her own daughter, she does her best to bring about a marriage between them.

Her husband is alive, and though he is a drunken brute,--after the manner of lords of that time,--she is thoroughly loyal to him.