s he
was pursuing the deer, she stalked his lordship: from Scotland she went
to Paris, where he was taking lessons in dancing at the Chaumiere; from
Paris to an English country-house, for Christmas, where he was expected,
but didn't come--not being, his professor said, quite complete in the
polka, and so on. If Ethel were privy to these manoeuvres, or anything
more than an unwittingly consenting party, I say we would depose
her from her place of heroine at once. But she was acting under her
grandmother's orders, a most imperious, irresistible, managing old
woman, who exacted everybody's obedience, and managed everybody's
business in her family. Lady Anne Newcome being in attendance on
her sick husband, Ethel was consigned to the Countess of Kew, her
grandmother, who hinted that she should leave Ethel her property when
dead, and whilst alive expected the girl should go about with her. She
had and wrote as many letters as a Secretary of State almost. She was
accustomed to set off without taking anybody's advice, or announcing her
departure until within an hour or two of the event. In her train moved
Ethel, against her own will, which would have led her to stay at home
with her father, but at the special wish and order of her parents. Was
such a sum as that of which Lady Kew had the disposal (Hobson Brothers
knew the amount of it quite well) to be left out of the family? Forbid
it, all ye powers! Barnes--who would have liked the money himself, and
said truly that he would live with his grandmother anywhere she liked
if he could get it,--Barnes joined most energetically with Sir Brian
and Lady Anne in ordering Ethel's obedience to Lady Kew. You know how
difficult it is for one young woman not to acquiesce when the family
council strongly orders. In fine, I hope there was a good excuse for the
queen of this history, and that it was her wicked domineering old prime
minister who led her wrong. Otherwise I say, we would have another
dynasty. Oh, to think of a generous nature, and the world, and nothing
but the world, to occupy it!--of a brave intellect, and the milliner's
bandboxes, and the scandal of the coteries, and the fiddle-faddle
etiquette of the Court for its sole exercise! of the rush and hurry
from entertainment to entertainment; of the constant smiles and cares
of representation; of the prayerless rest at night, and the awaking to
a godless morrow! This was the course of life to which Fate, and not
her own fault altog