narily good-natured. Mr. Maule, Adelaide's rejected lover, had
dined on one occasion with the Duke and Duchess in London. There
had been nothing remarkable at the dinner, and he had not at all
understood why he had been asked. But when he took his leave the
Duchess had told him that she would hope to see him at Matching. "We
expect a friend of yours to be with us," the Duchess had said. He had
afterwards received a written invitation and had accepted it; but he
was not to reach Matching till the day after that on which Phineas
arrived. Adelaide had been told of his coming only on this morning,
and had been much flurried by the news.

"But we have quarrelled," she said. "Then the best thing you can do
is to make it up again, my dear," said the Duchess. Miss Palliser was
undoubtedly of that opinion herself, but she hardly believed that so
terrible an evil as a quarrel with her lover could be composed by so
rough a remedy as this. The Duchess, who had become used to all the
disturbing excitements of life, and who didn't pay so much respect as
some do to the niceties of a young lady's feelings, thought that it
would be only necessary to bring the young people together again. If
she could do that, and provide them with an income, of course they
would marry. On the present occasion Phineas was told off to take
Miss Palliser down to dinner. "You saw the Chilterns before they left
town, I know," she said.

"Oh, yes. I am constantly in Portman Square."

"Of course. Lady Laura has gone down to Scotland;--has she not;--and
all alone?"

"She is alone now, I believe."

"How dreadful! I do not know any one that I pity so much as I do her.
I was in the house with her some time, and she gave me the idea of
being the most unhappy woman I had ever met with. Don't you think
that she is very unhappy?"

"She has had very much to make her so," said Phineas. "She was
obliged to leave her husband because of the gloom of his
insanity;--and now she is a widow."

"I don't suppose she ever really--cared for him; did she?" The
question was no sooner asked than the poor girl remembered the
whole story which she had heard some time back,--the rumour of the
husband's jealousy and of the wife's love, and she became as red as
fire, and unable to help herself. She could think of no word to say,
and confessed her confusion by her sudden silence.

Phineas saw it all, and did his best for her. "I am sure she cared
for him," he said, "though I do