hanks by the promise to
seek a purchaser; especially by his avoidance of prying queries. She
wanted just this excellent automaton fac-totum; and she referred him to
Mr. Braddock for the title-deeds, et caetera--the chirping phrase of
ladies happily washing their hands of the mean details of business.

'How of your last work?' he asked her.

Serenest equanimity rejoined: 'As I anticipated, it is not popular. The
critics are of one mind with the public. You may have noticed, they
rarely flower above that rocky surface. THE CANTATRICE sings them a false
note. My next will probably please them less.'

Her mobile lips and brows shot the faint upper-wreath of a smile
hovering. It was designed to display her philosophy.

'And what is the name of your next?' said he.

'I name it THE MAN OF TWO MINDS, if you can allow that to be in nature.'

'Contra-distinguished from the woman?'

'Oh! you must first believe the woman to have one.'

'You are working on it?'

'By fits. And I forgot, Mr. Redworth: I have mislaid my receipts, and
must ask you for the address of your wine-merchant;--or, will you?
Several dozen of the same wines. I can trust him to be in awe of you, and
the good repute of my table depends on his honesty.'

Redworth took the definite order for a large supply of wine.

She gave him her hand: a lost hand, dear to hold, needing to be guided,
he feared. For him, it was merely a hand, cut off from the wrist; and he
had performed that executive part! A wiser man would now have been the
lord of it . . . . So he felt, with his burning wish to protect and
cherish the beloved woman, while saying: 'If we find a speedy bidder for
The Crossways, you will have to thank our railways.'

'You!' said Diana, confident in his ability to do every-thing of the
practical kind.

Her ingenuousness tickled him. He missed her comic touches upon men and
things, but the fever shown by her manner accounted for it.

As soon as he left her, she was writing to the lover who had an hour
previously been hearing her voice; the note of her theme being Party; and
how to serve it, when to sacrifice it to the Country. She wrote,
carolling bars of the Puritani marches; and such will passion do, that
her choice of music was quite in harmony with her theme. The
martially-amorous melodies of Italian Opera in those days fostered a
passion challenged to intrepidity from the heart of softness; gliding at
the same time, and putting warm blood even i