contradictory
petulance. But he resolved that he would forgive it and endeavour
to bring her back to him. "I thought we were both joking," he said
good-humouredly.

"Oh, no! I never suspected you of a joke. At any rate she is coming."

"She will do neither of us any harm. And Mrs. Finn?"

"You have sent her to sea."

"She may be at sea,--and he too; but it is without my sending. The
First Lord, I believe, usually does go a cruise. Is there nobody
else?"

"Nobody else,--unless you have asked any one."

"Not a creature. Well;--so much the better. I dare say Lady Rosina
will get on very well."

"You will have to talk to her," said the Duchess.

"I will do my best," said the Duke.

Lady Rosina came and no doubt did think it odd. But she did not say
so, and it really did seem to the Duchess as though all her vengeance
had been blown away by the winds. And she too laughed at the
matter--to herself, and began to feel less cross and less perverse.
The world did not come to an end because she and her husband with
Lady Rosina and her boy and the private Secretary sat down to dinner
every day together. The parish clergyman with the neighbouring squire
and his wife and daughter did come one day,--to the relief of M.
Millepois, who had begun to feel that the world had collapsed. And
every day at a certain hour the Duke and Lady Rosina walked together
for an hour and a half in the park. The Duchess would have enjoyed
it, instead of suffering, could she only have had her friend, Mrs.
Finn, to hear her jokes. "Now, Plantagenet," she said, "do tell me
one thing. What does she talk about?"

"The troubles of her family generally, I think."

"That can't last for ever."

"She wears cork soles to her boots and she thinks a good deal about
them."

"And you listen to her?"

"Why not? I can talk about cork soles as well as anything else.
Anything that may do material good to the world at large, or even to
yourself privately, is a fit subject for conversation to rational
people."

"I suppose I never was one of them."

"But I can talk upon anything," continued the Duke, "as long as the
talker talks in good faith and does not say things that should not be
said, or deal with matters that are offensive. I could talk for an
hour about bankers' accounts, but I should not expect a stranger to
ask me the state of my own. She has almost persuaded me to send to
Mr. Sprout of Silverbridge and get some cork soles myself."

"Don't do