hat is not the way to improve the breed.'

'I suppose we women are taken to be the second thoughts of the Creator;
human nature's fringes, mere finishing touches, not a part of the
texture,' said Diana; 'the pretty ornamentation. However, I fancy I
perceive some tolerance growing in the minds of the dominant sex. Our old
lawyer Mr. Braddock, who appears to have no distaste for conversations
with me, assures me he expects the day to come when women will be
encouraged to work at crafts and professions for their independence. That
is the secret of the opinion of us at present--our dependency. Give us
the means of independence, and we will gain it, and have a turn at
judging you, my lords! You shall behold a world reversed. Whenever I am
distracted by existing circumstances, I lay my finger on the material
conditions, and I touch the secret. Individually, it may be moral with
us; collectively, it is material-gross wrongs, gross hungers. I am a
married rebel, and thereof comes the social rebel. I was once a dancing
and singing girl: You remember the night of the Dublin Ball. A Channel
sea in uproar, stirred by witches, flows between.'

'You are as lovely as you were then--I could say, lovelier,' said Emma.

'I have unconquerable health, and I wish I could give you the half of it,
dear. I work late into the night, and I wake early and fresh in the
morning. I do not sing, that is all. A few days more, and my character
will be up before the Bull's Head to face him in the arena. The worst of
a position like mine is, that it causes me incessantly to think and talk
of myself. I believe I think less than I talk, but the subject is growing
stale; as those who are long dying feel, I dare say--if they do not take
it as the compensation for their departure.'

The Bull's Head, or British Jury of Twelve, with the wig on it, was faced
during the latter half of a week of good news. First, Mr. Thomas Redworth
was returned to Parliament by a stout majority for the Borough of
Orrybridge: the Hon. Percy Dacier delivered a brilliant speech in the
House of Commons, necessarily pleasing to his uncle: Lord Larrian
obtained the command of the Rock: the house of The Crossways was let to a
tenant approved by Mr. Braddock: Diana received the opening proof-sheets
of her little volume, and an instalment of the modest honorarium: and
finally, the Plaintiff in the suit involving her name was adjudged to
have not proved his charge.

She heard of it wit