y Ringdove's cousin--and so forth. From
the gravity of that woman you would have fancied she had been born in a
palace, and lived all the seasons of her life in Belgrave Square."

"And you, I suppose you took your part in the conversation pretty well,
as the descendant of the Earl your father, and the heir of Fairoaks
Castle?" Warrington said. "Yes, I remember reading of the festivities
which occurred when you came of age. The Countess gave a brilliant tea
soiree to the neighbouring nobility; and the tenantry were regaled in
the kitchen with a leg of mutton and a quart of ale. The remains of
the banquet were distributed amongst the poor of the village, and the
entrance to the park was illuminated until old John put the candle out
on retiring to rest at his usual hour."

"My mother is not a countess," said Pen, "though she has very good blood
in her veins too--but commoner as she is, I have never met a peeress
who was more than her peer, Mr. George; and if you will come to Fairoaks
Castle you shall judge for yourself of her and of my cousin too. They
are not so witty as the London women, but they certainly are as well
bred. The thoughts of women in the country are turned to other objects
than those which occupy your London ladies. In the country a woman has
her household and her poor, her long calm days and long calm evenings."

"Devilish long," Warrington said, "and a great deal too calm; I've tried
'em."

"The monotony of that existence must be to a certain degree
melancholy--like the tune of a long ballad; and its harmony grave and
gentle, sad and tender: it would be unendurable else. The loneliness
of women in the country makes them of necessity soft and sentimental.
Leading a life of calm duty, constant routine, mystic reverie,--a sort
of nuns at large--too much gaiety or laughter would jar upon their
almost sacred quiet, and would be as out of place there as in a church."

"Where you go to sleep over the sermon," Warrington said.

"You are a professed misogynist, and hate the sex because, I suspect,
you know very little about them," Mr. Pen continued, with an air of
considerable self-complacency. "If you dislike the women in the country
for being too slow, surely the London woman ought to be fast enough for
you. The pace of London life is enormous: how do people last at it, I
wonder,--male and female? Take a woman of the world: follow her course
through the season; one asks how she can survive it? or if she tu