that my friend the
countess will continue to direct the hereditary vote of the Earl of ---
towards the goal of common sense and public good, guide his social policy
with judgment and kindness, and manage his estates with prudence and
economy for many years to come. She is a hearty, vigorous lady, of
generous proportions, with the blood of sturdy forebears in her veins,
and one who takes the same excellent good care of herself that she
bestows on all others dependent upon her guidance.

"I remember," said the doctor--we were dining with the doctor in homely
fashion, and our wives had adjourned to the drawing-room to discuss
servants and husbands and other domestic matters with greater freedom,
leaving us to the claret and the twilight--"I remember when we had the
cholera in the village--it must be twenty years ago now--that woman gave
up the London season to stay down here and take the whole burden of the
trouble upon her own shoulders. I do not feel any call to praise her;
she liked the work, and she was in her element, but it was good work for
all that. She had no fear. She would carry the children in her arms if
time pressed and the little ambulance was not at hand. I have known her
sit all night in a room not twelve feet square, between a dying man and
his dying wife. But the thing never touched her. Six years ago we had
the small-pox, and she went all through that in just the same way. I
don't believe she has ever had a day's illness in her life. She will be
physicking this parish when my bones are rattling in my coffin, and she
will be laying down the laws of literature long after your statue has
become a familiar ornament of Westminster Abbey. She's a wonderful
woman, but a trifle masterful."

He laughed, but I detected a touch of irritation in his voice. My host
looked a man wishful to be masterful himself. I do not think he quite
relished the calm way in which this grand dame took possession of all
things around her, himself and his work included.

"Did you ever hear the story of the marriage?" he asked.

"No," I replied, "whose marriage? The earl's?"

"I should call it the countess's," he answered. "It was the gossip of
the county when I first came here, but other curious things have happened
among us to push it gradually out of memory. Most people, I really
believe, have quite forgotten that the Countess of --- once served behind
a baker's counter."

"You don't say so," I exclaimed. The