sed to think that nothing would ever knock me up, but now I feel
that I'm almost done for. I hardly dare open my mouth to Plantagenet.
The Duke of St. Bungay has cut me. Mr. Monk looks as ominous as an
owl; and your husband hasn't a word to say left. Barrington Erle
hides his face and passes by when he sees me. Mr. Rattler did try to
comfort me the other day by saying that everything was at sixes and
sevens, and I really took it almost as a compliment to be spoken to.
Don't you think Plantagenet is ill?"

"He is careworn."

"A man may be worn by care till there comes to be nothing left of
him. But he never speaks of giving up now. The old Bishop of St.
Austell talks of resigning, and he has already made up his mind who
is to have the see. He used to consult the Duke about all these
things, but I don't think he ever consults any one now. He never
forgave the Duke about Lord Earlybird. Certainly, if a man wants to
quarrel with all his friends, and to double the hatred of all his
enemies, he had better become Prime Minister."

"Are you really sorry that such was his fate, Lady Glen?"

"Ah,--I sometimes ask myself that question, but I never get at an
answer. I should have thought him a poltroon if he had declined. It
is to be the greatest man in the greatest country in the world. Do
ever so little and the men who write history must write about you.
And no man has ever tried to be nobler than he till,--till--."

"Make no exception. If he be careworn and ill and weary, his manners
cannot be the same as they were, but his purity is the same as ever."

"I don't know that it would remain so. I believe in him, Marie, more
than in any man,--but I believe in none thoroughly. There is a devil
creeps in upon them when their hands are strengthened. I do not know
what I would have wished. Whenever I do wish, I always wish wrong.
Ah, me; when I think of all those people I had down at Gatherum,--of
the trouble I took, and of the glorious anticipations in which I
revelled, I do feel ashamed of myself. Do you remember when I was
determined that that wretch should be member for Silverbridge?"

"You haven't seen her since, Duchess?"

"No; but I mean to see her. I couldn't make her first husband member,
and therefore the man who is member is to be her second husband. But
I'm almost sick of schemes. Oh, dear, I wish I knew something that
was really pleasant to do. I have never really enjoyed anything since
I was in love, and I only li