met the Hon. Percy Dacier.
He was introduced to her at Cairo by Redworth. The two gentlemen had
struck up a House of Commons acquaintanceship, and finding themselves
bound for the same destination, had grown friendly. Redworth's arrival
had been pleasantly expected. She remarked on Dacier's presence to Emma,
without sketch or note of him as other than much esteemed by Lord and
Lady Esquart. These, with Diana, Redworth, Dacier, the German Eastern
traveller Schweizerbarth, and the French Consul and Egyptologist
Duriette, composed a voyaging party up the river, of which expedition
Redworth was Lady Dunstane's chief writer of the records. His novel
perceptiveness and shrewdness of touch made them amusing; and his
tenderness to the Beauty's coquettry between the two foreign rivals,
moved a deeper feeling. The German had a guitar, the Frenchman a voice;
Diana joined them in harmony. They complained apart severally of the
accompaniment and the singer. Our English criticized them apart; and that
is at any rate to occupy a post, though it contributes nothing to
entertainment. At home the Esquarts had sung duets; Diana had assisted
Redworth's manly chest-notes at the piano. Each of them declined to be
vocal. Diana sang alone for the credit of the country, Italian and French
songs, Irish also. She was in her mood of Planxty Kelly and Garryowen all
the way. 'Madame est Irlandaise?' Redworth heard the Frenchman say, and
he owned to what was implied in the answering tone of the question. 'We
should be dull dogs without the Irish leaven!' So Tony in exile still
managed to do something for her darling Erin. The solitary woman on her
heights at Copsley raised an exclamation of, 'Oh! that those two had been
or could be united!' She was conscious of a mystic symbolism in the
prayer.

She was not apprehensive of any ominous intervention of another. Writing
from Venice, Diana mentioned Mr. Percy Dacier as being engaged to an
heiress; 'A Miss Asper, niece of a mighty shipowner, Mr. Quintin Manx,
Lady Esquart tells me: money fabulous, and necessary to a younger son
devoured with ambition. The elder brother, Lord Creedmore, is a common
Nimrod, always absent in Hungary, Russia, America, hunting somewhere. Mr.
Dacier will be in the Cabinet with the next Ministry.' No more of him. A
new work by ANTONIA was progressing.

The Summer in South Tyrol passed like a royal procession before young
eyes for Diana, and at the close of it, descending the St