of her spinning, sylphidine,
unseizable; and between perplexing and mollifying the slaves of facts,
she saw them at their heels, a tearful fry, abjectly imitative of her
melodramatic performances. The spectacle was presented of a band of legal
gentlemen vociferating mightily for swords and the onset, like the
Austrian empress's Magyars, to vindicate her just and holy cause. Our
Law-courts failing, they threatened Parliament, and for a last resort,
the country! We are not going to be the woman Warwick without a stir, my
brethren.

Emma, an early riser that morning, for the purpose of a private
consultation with Mr. Redworth, found her lying placidly wakeful, to
judge by appearances.

'You have not slept, my dear child?'

'Perfectly,' said Diana, giving her hand and offering the lips. 'I'm only
having a warm morning bath in bed,' she added, in explanation of a chill
moisture that the touch of her exposed skin betrayed; for whatever the
fun of the woman Warwick, there had been sympathetic feminine horrors in
the frame of the sentient woman.

Emma fancied she kissed a quiet sufferer. A few remarks very soon set her
wildly laughing. Both were laughing when Danvers entered the room, rather
guilty, being late; and the sight of the prim-visaged maid she had been
driving among the lawyers kindled Diana's comic imagination to such a
pitch that she ran riot in drolleries, carrying her friend headlong on
the tide.

'I have not laughed so much since you were married,' said Emma.

'Nor I, dear; proving that the bar to it was the ceremony,' said Diana.

She promised to remain at Copsley three days. 'Then for the campaign in
Mr. Redworth's metropolis. I wonder whether I may ask him to get me
lodgings: a sitting-room and two bedrooms. The Crossways has a board up
for letting. I should prefer to be my own tenant; only it would give me a
hundred pounds more to get a substitute's money. I should like to be at
work writing instantly. Ink is my opium, and the pen my nigger, and he
must dig up gold for me. It is written. Danvers, you can make ready to
dress me when I ring.'

Emma helped the beautiful woman to her dressing-gown and the step from
her bed. She had her thoughts, and went down to Redworth at the
breakfast-table, marvelling that any husband other than a madman could
cast such a jewel away. The material loveliness eclipses intellectual
qualities in such reflections.

'He must be mad,' she said, compelled to disburden hers