ed to marry Miss Patmore Green.

"So you've come down to singe your wings again?" said Mrs. Houghton to
her cousin Jack.

"My wings have been burned clean away already, and, in point of fact, I
am not half so near to Lady George here as I was in London."

"It's only ten miles."

"If it were five it would be the same. We're not in the same set down
in Barsetshire."

"I suppose you can have yourself taken to Brotherton if you please?"

"Yes,--I can call at the deanery; but I shouldn't know what to say when
I got there."

"You've become very mealy-mouthed of a sudden."

"Not with you, my sweet cousin. With you I can discuss the devil and
all his works as freely as ever; but with Lady George, at her father's
house, I think I should be dumb. In truth, I haven't got anything to
say to her."

"I thought you had."

"I know you think so; but I haven't. It is quite on the card that I may
ride over some day, as I would to see my sister."

"Your sister!"

"And that I shall make eager enquiries after her horse, her pet dog,
and her husband."

"You will be wrong there, for she has quarrelled with her husband
altogether."

"I hope not."

"They are not living together, and never even see each other. He's at
Manor Cross, and she's at the deanery. She's a divinity to you, but
Lord George seems to have found her so human that he's tired of her
already."

"Then it must be his own fault."

"Or perhaps yours, Jack. You don't suppose a husband goes through a
little scene like that at Mrs. Jones' without feeling it?"

"He made an ass of himself, and a man generally feels that afterwards,"
said Jack.

"The truth is, they're tired of each other. There isn't very much in
Lord George, but there is something. He is slow, but there is a certain
manliness at the bottom of it. But there isn't very much in her!"

"That's all you know about it."

"Perhaps you may know her better, but I never could find anything. You
confess to being in love, and of course a lover is blind. But where you
are most wrong is in supposing that she is something so much better
than other women. She flirted with you so frankly that she made you
think her a goddess."

"She never flirted with me in her life."

"Exactly;--because flirting is bad, and she being a goddess cannot do
evil. I wish you'd take her in your arms and kiss her."

"I shouldn't dare."

"No;--and therefore you're not in the way to learn that she's a woman
just the same as oth