a moment.
To dismiss her at once, by paying the month's salary, might be the
preferable course to pursue--but for two objections. In the first place
(if the friendly understanding between them really continued) Carmina
might communicate with the discarded governess in secret. In the second
place, to pay Miss Minerva's salary before she had earned it, was
a concession from which Mrs. Gallilee's spite, and Mrs. Gallilee's
principles of paltry economy, recoiled in disgust. No! the waiting
policy in London, under whatever aspect it might be viewed, was, for the
present, the one policy to pursue.

She returned to the demands of her correspondence. Just as she had taken
up her pen, the sanctuary of the boudoir was violated by the appearance
of a servant.

"What is it now? Didn't the housekeeper tell you that I am not to be
disturbed?"

"I beg your pardon, ma'am. My master--"

"What does your master want?"

"He wishes to see you, ma'am."

This was a circumstance entirely without parallel in the domestic
history of the house. In sheer astonishment, Mrs. Gallilee pushed away
her letters, and said "Show him in."

When the boys of fifty years since were naughty, the schoolmaster of the
period was not accustomed to punish them by appealing to their sense
of honour. If a boy wanted a flogging, in those days, the educational
system seized a cane, or a birch-rod, and gave it to him. Mr. Gallilee
entered his wife's room, with the feelings which had once animated
him, on entering the schoolmaster's study to be caned. When he said
"Good-morning, my dear!" his face presented the expression of fifty
years since, when he had said, "Please, sir, let me off this time!"

"Now," said Mrs. Gallilee, "what do you want?"

"Only a little word. How well you're looking, my dear!"

After a sleepless night, followed by her defeat in Carmina's room,
Mrs. Gallilee looked, and knew that she looked, ugly and old. And her
wretched husband had reminded her of it. "Go on!" she answered sternly.

Mr. Gallilee moistened his dry lips. "I think I'll take a chair, if
you will allow me," he said. Having taken his chair (at a respectful
distance from his wife), he looked all round the room with the air of
a visitor who had never seen it before. "How very pretty!" he remarked
softly. "Such taste in colour. I think the carpet was your own design,
wasn't it? How chaste!"

_"Will_ you come to the point, Mr. Gallilee?"

"With pleasure, my dear--with plea