ad to learn his lesson by and by.

Lady Blandish gave him her face; then stretched her hand to the table,
saying, "Well! well!" She fingered a half-opened parcel lying there, and
drew forth a little book she recognized. "Ha! what is this?" she said.

"Benson returned it this morning," he informed her. "The stupid fellow
took it away with him--by mischance, I am bound to believe."

It was nothing other than the old Note-book. Lady Blandish turned over
the leaves, and came upon the later jottings.

She read: "A maker of Proverbs--what is he but a narrow mind with the
mouthpiece of narrower?"

"I do not agree with that," she observed. He was in no humour for
argument.

"Was your humility feigned when you wrote it?"

He merely said: "Consider the sort of minds influenced by set sayings. A
proverb is the half-way-house to an Idea, I conceive; and the majority
rest there content: can the keeper of such a house be flattered by his
company?"

She felt her feminine intelligence swaying under him again. There must be
greatness in a man who could thus speak of his own special and admirable
aptitude.

Further she read, "Which is the coward among us?--He who sneers at the
failings of Humanity!"

"Oh! that is true! How much I admire that!" cried the dark-eyed dame as
she beamed intellectual raptures.

Another Aphorism seemed closely to apply to him: "There is no more
grievous sight, as there is no greater perversion, than a wise man at the
mercy of his feelings."

"He must have written it," she thought, "when he had himself for an
example--strange man that he is!"

Lady Blandish was still inclined to submission, though decidedly
insubordinate. She had once been fairly conquered: but if what she
reverenced as a great mind could conquer her, it must be a great man that
should hold her captive. The Autumn Primrose blooms for the loftiest
manhood; is a vindictive flower in lesser hands. Nevertheless Sir Austin
had only to be successful, and this lady's allegiance was his for ever.
The trial was at hand.

She said again: "He is not coming to-night," and the baronet, on whose
visage a contemplative pleased look had been rising for a minute past,
quietly added: "He is come."

Richard's voice was heard in the hall.

There was commotion all over the house at the return of the young heir.
Berry, seizing every possible occasion to approach his Bessy now that her
involuntary coldness had enhanced her value--"Such is men!" as