as not genteel enough to tell
another story with a sufficiently moral tone in it to suit the club; he
would prefer to leave the next to a better man.

The Colonel had fallen into reflection. True it was, he observed, that
the more dreamy and impulsive nature of woman engendered within her
erratic fancies, which often started her on strange tracks, only to
abandon them in sharp revulsion at the dictates of her common
sense--sometimes with ludicrous effect. Events which had caused a lady's
action to set in a particular direction might continue to enforce the
same line of conduct, while she, like a mangle, would start on a sudden
in a contrary course, and end where she began.

The Vice-President laughed, and applauded the Colonel, adding that there
surely lurked a story somewhere behind that sentiment, if he were not
much mistaken.

The Colonel fixed his face to a good narrative pose, and went on without
further preamble.

DAME THE SEVENTH--ANNA, LADY BAXBY
By the Colonel

It was in the time of the great Civil War--if I should not rather, as a
loyal subject, call it, with Clarendon, the Great Rebellion. It was, I
say, at that unhappy period of our history, that towards the autumn of a
particular year, the Parliament forces sat down before Sherton Castle
with over seven thousand foot and four pieces of cannon. The Castle, as
we all know, was in that century owned and occupied by one of the Earls
of Severn, and garrisoned for his assistance by a certain noble Marquis
who commanded the King's troops in these parts. The said Earl, as well
as the young Lord Baxby, his eldest son, were away from home just now,
raising forces for the King elsewhere. But there were present in the
Castle, when the besiegers arrived before it, the son's fair wife Lady
Baxby, and her servants, together with some friends and near relatives of
her husband; and the defence was so good and well-considered that they
anticipated no great danger.

The Parliamentary forces were also commanded by a noble lord--for the
nobility were by no means, at this stage of the war, all on the King's
side--and it had been observed during his approach in the night-time, and
in the morning when the reconnoitring took place, that he appeared sad
and much depressed. The truth was that, by a strange freak of destiny,
it had come to pass that the stronghold he was set to reduce was the home
of his own sister, whom he had tenderly loved during her maidenhoo