not think it was a well-assorted
marriage. They had different ideas about religion, I fancy. So you
saw the hunting in the Brake country to the end? How is our old
friend, Mr. Spooner?"

"Don't talk of him, Mr. Finn."

"I rather like Mr. Spooner;--and as for hunting the country, I don't
think Chiltern could get on without him. What a capital fellow your
cousin the Duke is."

"I hardly know him."

"He is such a gentleman;--and, at the same time, the most abstract
and the most concrete man that I know."

"Abstract and concrete!"

"You are bound to use adjectives of that sort now, Miss Palliser, if
you mean to be anybody in conversation."

"But how is my cousin concrete? He is always abstracted when I speak
to him, I know."

"No Englishman whom I have met is so broadly and intuitively and
unceremoniously imbued with the simplicity of the character of a
gentleman. He could no more lie than he could eat grass."

"Is that abstract or concrete?"

"That's abstract. And I know no one who is so capable of throwing
himself into one matter for the sake of accomplishing that one thing
at a time. That's concrete." And so the red colour faded away from
poor Adelaide's face, and the unpleasantness was removed.

"What do you think of Laurence's wife?" Erle said to him late in the
evening.

"I have only just seen her. The money is there, I suppose."

"The money is there, I believe; but then it will have to remain
there. He can't touch it. There's about L2,000 a-year, which will
have to go back to her family unless they have children."

"I suppose she's--forty?"

"Well; yes, or perhaps forty-five. You were locked up at the time,
poor fellow,--and had other things to think of; but all the interest
we had for anything beyond you through May and June was devoted to
Laurence and his prospects. It was off and on, and on and off, and he
was in a most wretched condition. At last she wouldn't consent unless
she was to be asked here."

"And who managed it?"

"Laurence came and told it all to the Duchess, and she gave him the
invitation at once."

"Who told you?"

"Not the Duchess,--nor yet Laurence. So it may be untrue, you
know;--but I believe it. He did ask me whether he'd have to stand
another election at his marriage. He has been going in and out of
office so often, and always going back to the Co. Mayo at the expense
of half a year's salary, that his mind had got confused, and he
didn't quite know what did and what