stic silence.

Andrew sighed; he attempted to do the same. He stuck his fork in the
blanched whiskerage of his marmoset, and exclaimed: 'I can't!'

He was unnoticed.

'You do not object to plain diet?' said Harriet to Louisa.

'Oh, no, in verity!' murmured the Countess. 'However plain it be! Absence
of appetite, dearest. You are aware I partook of luncheon at mid-day with
the Honourable and Reverend Mr. Duffian. You must not look condemnation
at your Louy for that. Luncheon is not conversion!'

Harriet observed that this might be true; but still, to her mind, it was
a mistake to be too intimate with dangerous people. 'And besides,' she
added, 'Mr. Duffian is no longer "the Reverend." We deprive all renegades
of their spiritual titles. His worldly ones let him keep.'

Her superb disdain nettled the Countess.

'Dear Harriet!' she said, with less languor, 'You are utterly and totally
and entirely mistaken. I tell you so positively. Renegade! The
application of such a word to such a man! Oh! and it is false, Harriet
quite! Renegade means one who has gone over to the Turks, my dear. I am
almost certain I saw it in Johnson's Dictionary, or an: improvement upon
Johnson, by a more learned author. But there is the fact, if Harriet can
only bring her--shall I say stiff-necked prejudices to envisage it?'

Harriet granted her sister permission to apply the phrases she stood in
need of, without impeaching her intimacy with the most learned among
lexicographers.

'And is there no such thing as being too severe?' the Countess resumed.
'What our enemies call unchristian!'

'Mr. Duffian has no cause to complain of us,' said Harriet.

'Nor does he do so, dearest. Calumny may assail him; you may utterly
denude him--'

'Adam!' interposed Andrew, distractedly listening. He did not disturb the
Countess's flow.

'You may vilify and victimize Mr. Duffian, and strip him of the honours
of his birth, but, like the Martyrs, he will still continue the perfect
nobleman. Stoned, I assure you that Mr. Duffian would preserve his
breeding. In character he is exquisite; a polish to defy misfortune.'

'I suppose his table is good?' said Harriet, almost ruffled by the
Countess's lecture.

'Plate,' was remarked in the cold tone of supreme indifference.

'Hem! good wines?' Andrew asked, waking up a little and not wishing to be
excluded altogether.

'All is of the very best,' the Countess pursued her eulogy, not looking
at him.

'Don't