stolary style better than her public; that is she felt her
public letters would have been excellent if they had not been printed.
Henrietta's career, however, was not so successful as might have been
wished even in the interest of her private felicity; that view of the
inner life of Great Britain which she was so eager to take appeared to
dance before her like an ignis fatuus. The invitation from Lady Pensil,
for mysterious reasons, had never arrived; and poor Mr. Bantling
himself, with all his friendly ingenuity, had been unable to explain
so grave a dereliction on the part of a missive that had obviously been
sent. He had evidently taken Henrietta's affairs much to heart,
and believed that he owed her a set-off to this illusory visit to
Bedfordshire. "He says he should think I would go to the Continent,"
Henrietta wrote; "and as he thinks of going there himself I suppose his
advice is sincere. He wants to know why I don't take a view of French
life; and it's a fact that I want very much to see the new Republic. Mr.
Bantling doesn't care much about the Republic, but he thinks of going
over to Paris anyway. I must say he's quite as attentive as I could
wish, and at least I shall have seen one polite Englishman. I keep
telling Mr. Bantling that he ought to have been an American, and you
should see how that pleases him. Whenever I say so he always breaks out
with the same exclamation--'Ah, but really, come now!" A few days later
she wrote that she had decided to go to Paris at the end of the week and
that Mr. Banding had promised to see her off--perhaps even would go
as far as Dover with her. She would wait in Paris till Isabel should
arrive, Henrietta added; speaking quite as if Isabel were to start on
her continental journey alone and making no allusion to Mrs. Touchett.
Bearing in mind his interest in their late companion, our heroine
communicated several passages from this correspondence to Ralph,
who followed with an emotion akin to suspense the career of the
representative of the Interviewer.

"It seems to me she's doing very well," he said, "going over to Paris
with an ex-Lancer! If she wants something to write about she has only to
describe that episode."

"It's not conventional, certainly," Isabel answered; "but if you mean
that--as far as Henrietta is concerned--it's not perfectly innocent,
you're very much mistaken. You'll never understand Henrietta."

"Pardon me, I understand her perfectly. I didn't at all a