l this good advice?"

"I have not asked you to stay. Go now, at any rate. And, remember,
Conway, if this picture is to go on, I will not have you remaining
here after the work is done. Will you remember that?" And she held
him by the hand while he declared that he would remember it.

Mrs. Dobbs Broughton was no more in love with Conway Dalrymple than
she was in love with King Charles on horseback at Charing Cross.
And, over and beyond the protection which came to her in the course
of nature from unimpassioned feelings in this special phase of her
life,--and indeed, I may say, in every phase of her life,--it must be
acknowledged on her behalf that she did enjoy that protection which
comes from what we call principle,--though the principle was not
perhaps very high of its kind. Madalina Demolines had been right when
she talked of her friend Maria's principles. Dobbs Broughton had been
so far lucky in that jump in the dark which he had made in taking a
wife to himself, that he had not fallen upon a really vicious woman,
or upon a woman of strong feeling. If it had come to be the lot of
Mrs. Dobbs Broughton to have six hours' work to do every day of her
life, I think that the work would have been done badly, but that it
would have kept her free from all danger. As it was she had nothing
to do. She had no child. She was not given to much reading. She could
not sit with a needle in her hand all day. She had no aptitude for
May meetings, or the excitement of charitable good works. Life with
her was very dull, and she found no amusement within her reach so
easy and so pleasant as the amusement of pretending to be in love. If
all that she did and all that she said could only have been taken for
its worth and for nothing more, by the different persons concerned,
there was very little in it to flatter Mr. Dalrymple or to give cause
for tribulation to Mr. Broughton. She probably cared but little for
either of them. She was one of those women to whom it is not given by
nature to care very much for anybody. But, of the two, she certainly
cared the most for Mr. Dobbs Broughton,--because Mr. Dobbs Broughton
belonged to her. As to leaving Mr. Dobbs Broughton's house, and
putting herself into the hands of another man,--no Imogen of a wife
was ever less likely to take a step so wicked, so dangerous, and so
generally disagreeable to all the parties concerned.

But Conway Dalrymple,--though now and again he had got a side glance
at her t