it in which the odd twists
and turns of history must have been more frequent than any dull avenue
or easy sequence. Lady Sandgate was shiningly modern, and perhaps at no
point more so than by the effect of her express repudiation of a mundane
future certain to be more and more offensive to women of real quality
and of formed taste. Clearly, at any rate, in her hands, the clue to
the antique confidence had lost itself, and repose, however founded, had
given way to curiosity--that is to speculation--however disguised. She
might have consented, or even attained, to being but gracefully stupid,
but she would presumably have confessed, if put on her trial for
restlessness or for intelligence, that she _was_, after all, almost
clever enough to be vulgar. Unmistakably, moreover, she had still, with
her fine stature, her disciplined figure, her cherished complexion, her
bright important hair, her kind bold eyes and her large constant smile,
the degree of beauty that might pretend to put every other question by.

Lord John addressed her as with a significant manner that he might have
had--that of a lack of need, or even of interest, for any explanation
about herself: it would have been clear that he was apt to discriminate
with sharpness among possible claims on his attention. "I luckily find
_you_ at least, Lady Sandgate--they tell me Theign's off somewhere."

She replied as with the general habit, on her side, of bland
reassurance; it mostly had easier consequences--for herself--than the
perhaps more showy creation of alarm. "Only off in the park--open to-day
for a school-feast from Dedborough, as you may have made out from the
avenue; giving good advice, at the top of his lungs, to four hundred and
fifty children."

It was such a scene, and such an aspect of the personage so accounted
for, as Lord John could easily take in, and his recognition familiarly
smiled. "Oh he's so great on such occasions that I'm sorry to be missing
it."

"I've _had_ to miss it," Lady Sandgate sighed--"that is to miss the
peroration. I've just left them, but he had even then been going on for
twenty minutes, and I dare say that if you care to take a look you'll
find him, poor dear victim of duty, still _at_ it."

"I'll warrant--for, as I often tell him, he makes the idea of one's duty
an awful thing to his friends by the extravagance with which he always
overdoes it." And the image itself appeared in some degree to prompt
this particular edifi