u. But surely her vigorous
intellect ought to have challenged your admiration; you can't deny that?"

I was not clever enough to be able to deny it. But I was bold enough to
say that Lady Rachel seemed to me to be a woman who talked for the sake
of producing effect. She expressed opinions, as I ventured to declare,
which (in her position) I did not believe she could honestly entertain.

Mrs. Roylake entered a vigorous protest. She assured me that I was
completely mistaken. "Lady Rachel," she said, "is the most perfectly
candid person in the whole circle of my acquaintance."

With the best intentions on my part, this was more than I could patiently
endure.

"Isn't she the daughter of a nobleman?" I asked. "Doesn't she owe her
rank and her splendor, and the respect that people show to her, to the
fortunate circumstance of her birth? And yet she talks as if she was a
red republican. You yourself heard her say that she was a thorough
Radical, and hoped she might live to see the House of Lords abolished.
Oh, I heard her! And what is more, I listened so attentively to such
sentiments as these, from a lady with a title, that I can repeat, word
for word, what she said next. "We hav'n't deserved our own titles; we
hav'n't earned our own incomes; and we legislate for the country, without
having been trusted by the country. In short, we are a set of impostors,
and the time is coming when we shall be found out." Do you believe she
really meant that? All as false as false can be--that's what I say of
it."

There I stopped, privately admiring my own eloquence.

Quite a mistake on my part; my eloquence had done just what Mrs. Roylake
wished me to do. She wanted an opportunity of dropping Lady Rachel, and
taking up Lady Lena, with a producible reason which forbade the
imputation of a personal motive on her part. I had furnished her with the
reason. Thus far, I cannot deny it, my stepmother was equal to herself.

"Really, Gerard, you are so violent in your opinions that I am sorry I
spoke of Lady Rachel. Shall I find you equally prejudiced, and equally
severe, if I change the subject to dear Lady Lena? Oh, don't say you
think She is false, too!"

Here Mrs. Roylake made her first mistake. She over-acted her part; and,
when it was too late, she arrived, I suspect, at that conclusion herself.

"If you hav'n't seen that I sincerely admire Lady Lena," I said, as
smartly as I could, "the sooner you disfigure yourself with a pair of