n Morley; here, at least, he might give
advice--offer suggestion. She sent to his house entreating him to call.
Her messenger was some hours before he found the Colonel, and then
brought back but a few hasty lines--"impossible to call that day. The
CRISIS had come at last! The Country, the House of Vipont, the British
Empire, were trembling in the balance. The Colonel was engaged every
moment for the next twelve hours. He had the Earl of Montfort, who was
intractable and stupid beyond conception, to see and talk over; Carr
Vipont was hard at work on the materials for the new Cabinet--Alban
was helping Carr Vipont. If the House of Vipont failed England at this
moment, it would not be a CRISIS, but a CRASH! The Colonel hoped to
arrange an interview with Lady Montfort for a minute or two the next
day. But perhaps she would excuse him from a journey to Twickenham, and
drive into town to see him; if not at home, he would leave word where he
was to be found."

By the beard of Jupiter Capitolinus, there are often revolutions in the
heart of woman, during which she is callous to a Crisis, and has not
even a fear for a CRASH!

The next day came George's letter to Caroline, with the gentle message
from Darrell; and when Dr. F------, whose apprehensions for the state
of her health Colonel Morley had by no means exaggerated, called in the
afternoon to see the effect of his last prescription, he found her in
such utter prostration of nerves and spirits, that he resolved to
hazard a dose not much known to great ladies--viz. three grains of
plain-speaking, with a minim of frightening.

"My dear lady," said he, "yours is a case in which physicians can be of
very little use. There is something on the mind which my prescriptions
fail to reach; worry of some sort--decidedly worry. And unless you
yourself can either cure that, or will make head against it, worry,
my dear Lady Montfort, will end not in consumption--you are too finely
formed to let worry eat holes in the lungs--no; but in a confirmed
aneurism of the heart, and the first sudden shock might then be
immediately fatal. The heart is a noble organ--bears a great deal--but
still its endurance has limits. Heart-complaints are more common than
they were;--over-education and over-civilisation, I suspect. Very young
people are not so subject to them; they have flurry, not worry--a very
different thing. A good chronic silent grief of some years standing,
that gets worried into acute