nto dull arithmetical figures
which might be important to her lover, her hero fronting battle. She
condensed Redworth's information skilfully, heartily giving it and
whatever she had imbibed, as her own, down to the remark: 'Common sense
in questions of justice, is a weapon that makes way into human heads and
wins the certain majority, if we strike with it incessantly.' Whether
anything she wrote was her own, mattered little: the savour of Percy's
praise, which none could share with her, made it instantly all her own.
Besides she wrote to strengthen him; she naturally laid her friends and
the world under contribution; and no other sort of writing was possible.
Percy had not a common interest in fiction; still less for high comedy.
He liked the broad laugh when he deigned to open books of that sort; puns
and strong flavours and harlequin surprises; and her work would not admit
of them, however great her willingness to force her hand for his
amusement: consequently her inventiveness deadened. She had to cease
whipping it. 'My poor old London cabhorse of a pen shall go to grass!'
she sighed, looking to the sale of The Crossways for money; looking no
farther.

Those marshalled battalions of Debit and Credit were in hostile order,
the weaker simply devoted to fighting for delay, when a winged messenger
bearing the form of old Mr. Braddock descended to her with the
reconciling news that a hermit bachelor, an acquaintance of Mr.
Redworth's--both of whom wore a gloomy hue in her mind immediately--had
offered a sum for the purchase of The Crossways. Considering the
out-of-the-way district, Mr. Braddock thought it an excellent price to
get. She thought the reverse, but confessed that double the sum would not
have altered her opinion. Double the sum scarcely counted for the service
she required of it for much more than a year. The money was paid shortly
after into her Bank, and then she enjoyed the contemptuous felicity of
tossing meat to her lions, tigers, wolves, and jackals, who, but for the
fortunate intervention, would have been feeding on her. These menagerie
beasts of prey were the lady's tradesmen, Debit's hungry-brood. She had a
rapid glimpse of a false position in regarding that legitimate band so
scornfully: another glimpse likewise of a day to come when they might not
be stopped at the door. She was running a race with something; with what?
It was unnamed; it ran in a shroud.

At times she surprised her heart violentl