cs and terra-cottas.

For this lady had then remarked that, for her part, she thought the
Ancient Romans were too far removed from our own daily life for any but
Antiquarians to enter sympathetically into theirs. She herself doted on
History, but was inclined to draw the line at Queen Ann. It would be
mere affectation in her to pretend to sympathize with Oliver Cromwell or
the Stuarts, and as for Henry the Eighth he was simply impossible. But
the Recent Past touched a chord. Give her the four Georges. This was
just as she and the Hon. Percival began to let the others go on in
front, and the others began to use their opportunity to do so.

Three months ago the gentleman might have decided that the lady was
talking rot. Her position now struck him as original, forcible, and new.
But he was so keenly alive to the fact that he was not in the least in
love with her, that it is very difficult to account for his leniency
towards this rot. It showed itself as even more than leniency, if he
meant what he said in reply:--"By Jove, Miss Dickenson, I shouldn't
wonder if you were right. I never thought of it that way before!"

"I'm not quite sure I ever did," she answered; telling the truth; and
not seeming any the worse, in personality, for doing so. "At least,
until I got rather bored by having to listen. I really hate speeches and
lectures and papers and things. But what I said is rather true, for all
that. I'm sure I shall be more interested in the house the Prince Regent
was drunk in, where I'm going to stay in town, than in any number of
atriums. It _does_ go home to one more--now, doesn't it?"

Mr. Pellew did not answer the question. He got his eyeglass right, and
looked round--he had contracted a habit of doing this--to see if Aunt
Constance was justifying the tradition of her youth, reported by her
adopted niece. He admitted that she was. Stimulated by this conviction,
he decided on:--"Are you going to stay in town? Where?"

"At Clotilda's--Sister Nora, you know. In Cavendish Square. I hope it's
like what she says. Scarcely anything has been moved since her mother
died, when she was a baby, and for years before that the drawing-rooms
were shut up. Why did you ask?" This was a perfectly natural question,
arising out of the subject before the house.

Nevertheless it frightened the gentleman into modifying what he meant to
say next, which was:--"May I call on you there?" He gave it up, as too
warm on the whole, considerin