ant general and a devoted sister, and if she said to
herself, 'Come what may, I will stay for that pic-nic, and they shall not
brow-beat me out of it,' it is that trifling pleasures are noisiest about
the heart of human nature: not that they govern us absolutely. There is
mob-rule in minds as in communities, but the Countess had her appetites
in excellent drill. This pic-nic surrendered, represented to her defeat
in all its ignominy. The largest longest-headed of schemes ask
occasionally for something substantial and immediate. So the Countess
stipulated with Providence for the pic-nic. It was a point to be passed:
'Thorough flood, thorough fire.'

In vain poor Andrew Cogglesby, to whom the dinner had been torture, and
who was beginning to see the position they stood in at Beckley, begged to
be allowed to take them away, or to go alone. The Countess laughed him
into submission. As a consequence of her audacious spirits she grew more
charming and more natural, and the humour that she possessed, but which,
like her other faculties, was usually subordinate to her plans, gave
spontaneous bursts throughout the day, and delighted her courtiers. Nor
did the men at all dislike the difference of her manner with them, and
with the ladies. I may observe that a woman who shows a marked depression
in the presence of her own sex will be thought very superior by ours;
that is, supposing she is clever and agreeable. Manhood distinguishes
what flatters it. A lady approaches. 'We must be proper,' says the
Countess, and her hearty laugh dies with suddenness and is succeeded by
the maturest gravity. And the Countess can look a profound merriment with
perfect sedateness when there appears to be an equivoque in company.
Finely secret are her glances, as if under every eye-lash there lurked
the shade of a meaning. What she meant was not so clear. All this was
going on, and Lady Jocelyn was simply amused, and sat as at a play.

'She seems to have stepped out of a book of French memoirs,' said her
ladyship. 'La vie galante et devote--voila la Comtesse.'

In contradistinction to the other ladies, she did not detest the Countess
because she could not like her.

'Where 's the harm in her?' she asked. 'She doesn't damage the men, that
I can see. And a person you can laugh at and with, is inexhaustible.'

'And how long is she to stay here?' Mrs. Shorne inquired. Mrs. Melville
remarking: 'Her visit appears to be inexhaustible.'

'I suppose she'l