Like every one else employed by Lady Ludlow, as far as I could learn, he had an hereditary tie to the Hanbury family.

As long as the Smithsons had been lawyers, they had been lawyers to the Hanburys; always coming in on all great family occasions, and better able to understand the characters, and connect the links of what had once been a large and scattered family, than any individual thereof had ever been.
As long as a man was at the head of the Hanburys, the lawyers had simply acted as servants, and had only given their advice when it was required.
But they had assumed a different position on the memorable occasion of the mortgage: they had remonstrated against it.

My lady had resented this remonstrance, and a slight, unspoken coolness had existed between her and the father of this Mr.Smithson ever since.
I was very sorry for my lady.

Mr.Smithson was inclined to blame Mr.
Horner for the disorderly state in which he found some of the outlying farms, and for the deficiencies in the annual payment of rents.

Mr.
Smithson had too much good feeling to put this blame into words; but my lady's quick instinct led her to reply to a thought, the existence of which she perceived; and she quietly told the truth, and explained how she had interfered repeatedly to prevent Mr.Horner from taking certain desirable steps, which were discordant to her hereditary sense of right and wrong between landlord and tenant.