feared that no boiling water could be procured at that late hour of
the night. Could he have his breakfast the next morning at seven, and
a conveyance to Callender at half-past seven? When the old man again
shook his head, seeming to be dazed at the enormity of the demand,
Phineas insisted that his request should be conveyed to the master of
the house. As to the breakfast, he said he did not care about it, but
the conveyance he must have. He did, in fact, obtain both, and left
the house early on the following morning without again seeing Mr.
Kennedy, and without having spoken a single word to Mr. Kennedy's
mother. And so great was his hurry to get away from the place which
had been so disagreeable to him, and which he thought might possibly
become more so, that he did not even run across the sward that
divided the gravel sweep from the foot of the waterfall.

CHAPTER XI

The Truant Wife

Phineas on his return to London wrote a line to Lady Chiltern in
accordance with a promise which had been exacted from him. She was
anxious to learn something as to the real condition of her husband's
brother-in-law, and, when she heard that Phineas was going to
Loughlinter, had begged that he would tell her the truth. "He has
become eccentric, gloomy, and very strange," said Phineas. "I do not
believe that he is really mad, but his condition is such that I think
no friend should recommend Lady Laura to return to him. He seems to
have devoted himself to a gloomy religion,--and to the saving of
money. I had but one interview with him, and that was essentially
disagreeable." Having remained two days in London, and having
participated, as far as those two days would allow him, in the
general horror occasioned by the wickedness and success of Mr.
Daubeny, he started for Dresden.

He found Lord Brentford living in a spacious house, with a huge
garden round it, close upon the northern confines of the town.
Dresden, taken altogether, is a clean cheerful city, and strikes
the stranger on his first entrance as a place in which men are
gregarious, busy, full of merriment, and pre-eminently social. Such
is the happy appearance of but few towns either in the old or the
new world, and is hardly more common in Germany than elsewhere.
Leipsic is decidedly busy, but does not look to be social. Vienna is
sufficiently gregarious, but its streets are melancholy. Munich is
social, but lacks the hum of business. Frankfort is both practical
and