at her a
great deal, and Lady Charlotte paid her one or two compliments on her
looks, which _I_ thought she would not have ventured to pay to any one
in her own circle.

'We stayed about half an hour. One of the gentlemen was, I believe, a
member of the Government, an under-secretary for something, but he and
Rose and Lady Charlotte talked again of nothing but musicians and
actors. It is strange that politicians should have time to know so much
of these things. The other gentleman reminded me of Hotspur's popinjay.
I think now I made out that he wrote for the newspapers, but at the
moment I should have felt it insulting to accuse him of anything so
humdrum as an occupation in life. He discovered somehow that I had an
interest in the Church, and he asked me, leaning back in his chair and
lisping, whether I really thought "the Church could still totter on a
while in the rural dithtricts." He was informed her condition was so
"vewy dethperate."

'Then I laughed outright, and found my tongue. Perhaps his next article
on the Church will have a few facts in it. I did my best to put some
into him. Rose at last looked round at me, astonished. But he did not
dislike me, I think. I was not impertinent to him, husband mine. If I
might have described just _one_ of your days to his high-and-mightiness!
There is no need to tell you, I think, whether I did or not.

'Then when we got up to go, Lady Charlotte asked Rose to stay with her.
Rose explained why she couldn't, and Lady Charlotte pitied her
dreadfully for having a family, and the under-secretary said that it was
one's first duty in life to trample on one's relations, and that he
hoped nothing would prevent his hearing her play some time later in the
year. Rose said very decidedly she should be in town for the winter.
Lady Charlotte said she would have an evening specially for her, and as
I said nothing, we got away at last.'

The letter of the following day recorded a little adventure:--

'I was much startled this morning. I had got Rose to come with me to the
National Gallery on our way to her dressmaker. We were standing before
Raphael's "Vigil of the Knight," when suddenly I saw Rose, who was
looking away towards the door into the long gallery, turn perfectly
white. I followed her eyes, and there, in the doorway, disappearing,--I
am almost certain,--was Mr. Langham! One cannot mistake his walk or his
profile. Before I could say a word Rose had walked away to another wa