The ladies of Gaunt House called Lady Bareacres in to their aid, in order to repulse the common enemy. One of Lady Gaunt's carriages went to Hill Street for her Ladyship's mother, all whose equipages were in the hands of the bailiffs, whose very jewels and wardrobe, it was said, had been seized by those inexorable Israelites. Bareacres Castle was theirs, too, with all its costly pictures, furniture, and articles of vertu--the magnificent Vandykes; the noble Reynolds pictures; the Lawrence portraits, tawdry and beautiful, and, thirty years ago, deemed as precious as works of real genius; the matchless Dancing Nymph of Canova, for which Lady Bareacres had sat in her youth--Lady Bareacres splendid then, and radiant in wealth, rank, and beauty--a toothless, bald, old woman now--a mere rag of a former robe of state. Her lord, painted at the same time by Lawrence, as waving his sabre in front of Bareacres Castle, and clothed in his uniform as Colonel of the Thistlewood Yeomanry, was a withered, old, lean man in a greatcoat and a Brutus wig, slinking about Gray's Inn of mornings chiefly and dining alone at clubs. He did not like to dine with Steyne now. They had run races of pleasure together in youth when Bareacres was the winner. But Steyne had more bottom than he and had lasted him out. The Marquis was ten times a greater man now than the young Lord Gaunt of '85, and Bareacres nowhere in the race--old, beaten, bankrupt, and broken down. He had borrowed too much money of Steyne to find it pleasant to meet his old comrade often. The latter, whenever he wished to be merry, used jeeringly to ask Lady Gaunt why her father had not come to see her. 
The ladies of Gaunt House called Lady Bareacres to their aid to repulse the common enemy. One of Lady Gaunt's carriages went to Hill Street for her mother, since Lady Bareacres' carriages were in the hands of the bailiffs - as was Bareacres Castle, with all its costly pictures and furniture: the magnificent Vandykes and Reynolds, the Lawrence portraits and the matchless Dancing Nymph, for which Lady Bareacres had sat in her youth - radiant then, but now a toothless, bald old woman, a mere rag of a former robe of state. Her lord was a lean, withered man in a greatcoat and a Brutus wig, slinking about Gray's Inn, bankrupt and broken down. He had borrowed too much money from Steyne to find it pleasant to meet his old comrade. Steyne, whenever he wished to be merry, used jeeringly to ask Lady Gaunt why her father had not come to see her.
