face, she
cloaked any small show of the riot. She was an amiable hostess. She had
ceased to comprehend Mrs. Lawrence, even to the degree of thinking her
unfeminine. She should have known that the 'angelical chimpanzee,' as
a friend, once told of his being a favourite with the lady, had called
her, could not simulate a feeling, and had not the slightest power of
pretence to compassion for an ill-fated person who failed to quicken her
enthusiasm. In that, too, she was a downright boy. Morsfield was a
kind of Bedlamite to her; amusing in his antics, and requiring to be
manoeuvred and eluded while he lived: once dead, just a tombstone, of
interest only to his family.

She beckoned Aminta to follow her; and, with a smirk of indulgent fun,
commended Lord Adderwood to a study of Selina Collett's botany-folios,
which the urbanest of indifferent gentlemen had slid his eyes over his
nose to inspect before the lunch.

'You ought to know what is going on in town, my dear Aminta. You have
won the earl to a sense of his duty, and he 's at work on the harder
task of winning Lady Charlotte Eglett to a sense of hers. It 's
tremendous. Has been forward some days, and no sign of yielding on
either side. Mr. Eglett, good man, is between them, catching it right
and left; and he deserves his luck for marrying her. Vows she makes him
the best of wives. If he 's content, I 've nothing to complain of. You
must be ready to receive her; my lord is sure to carry the day.
You gulp. You won't be seeing much of her. I 'm glad to say he is
condescending to terms of peace with the Horse Guards. We hear so. You
may be throning it officially somewhere next year. And all 's well that
ends well! Say that to me!'

'It is, when the end comes,' Aminta replied.

Mrs. Lawrence's cool lips were pressed to her cheek. The couple
and their waterman rowed away to the party they had left with the
four-in-hand at their inn.

A wind was rising. The trees gave their swish of leaves, the river
darkened the patch of wrinkles, the bordering flags amid the reed-blades
dipped and streamed.

Surcharged with unassimilated news of events, that made a thunder in her
head, Aminta walked down the garden path, meeting Selina and bearing
her on. She had a witch's will to rouse gales. Hers was not the woman's
nature to be driven cowering by stories of men's bloody deeds. She took
the field, revolted, dissevering herself from the class which tolerated
them--actuated by a refl