Service, however (with a few limited reservations, genteel but not profitable), they may not do, being of the Dedlock dignity. So they visit their richer cousins, and get into debt when they can, and live but shabbily when they can't, and find--the women no husbands, and the men no wives--and ride in borrowed carriages, and sit at feasts that are never of their own making, and so go through high life. The rich family sum has been divided by so many figures, and they are the something over that nobody knows what to do with.
Everybody on Sir Leicester Dedlock's side of the question and of his way of thinking would appear to be his cousin more or less. From my Lord Boodle, through the Duke of Foodle, down to Noodle, Sir Leicester, like a glorious spider, stretches his threads of relationship. But while he is stately in the cousinship of the Everybodys, he is a kind and generous man, according to his dignified way, in the cousinship of the Nobodys; and at the present time, in despite of the damp, he stays out the visit of several such cousins at Chesney Wold with the constancy of a martyr.

Service, however, they may not do, being of the Dedlock dignity. So they visit their richer cousins, and get into debt when they can, and live shabbily when they can't, and ride in borrowed carriages, and sit at other people's feasts.
Sir Leicester, like a glorious spider, stretches his threads of relationship to countless cousins. But he is a kind and generous man, according to his dignified way, in the cousinship of the Nobodys; and at present, in spite of the damp, he tolerates the visit of several such cousins at Chesney Wold with the constancy of a martyr.
