earthquakes this winter, particularly while we are cooking
our gouty old limbs in the hot springs. By the way, whom have you
decreed James shall marry?"

"I should not think of interfering in such a matter." Lady Hunsdon
spoke with her usual bland emphasis, but darted a keen glance at Anne.
It was not disapproving, for Miss Percy's descent was long, she liked
the splendid vitality of the girl, and Hunsdon had riches of his own.
But, far cleverer than Mrs. Nunn, she suspected depths which might
have little in common with her son, and a will which might make a
mother-in-law hate her. Lady Hunsdon loved peace, and wondered that
anyone should question her rigid rules for enforcing it. But of Anne
as a valuable coadjutor in the present instance there could be no
doubt, and, to do her justice, she anticipated no danger in the
meeting of a fine girl, full of eager interest in life, and the
demoralised being her son so pathetically described. She was quite
sincere in her desire to lift the gifted young man from his moral
quagmire, but this new opportunity to exercise her power, almost
moribund since her party was no longer in Opposition, was a stronger
motive still.

When Anne was alone in her room she sat down and stared through the
half-closed jalousies until the luncheon bell rang at two o'clock,
forgetting to change her frock. But she could make little of the
ferment in her mind, except that her mental companion, that arbitrary
creation she had called Byam Warner, was gone forever. Even did she
return to her northern home and dwell alone, his image would never
return. She could not even now recall the lineaments of that immortal
lover. The life of the imagination was past. Realities multiplied; no
doubt she was converging swiftly upon one so hideous as to make her
wish she had never been born. Any day she might be formally introduced
over a dish of tea to a degraded, broken creature whom all the world
despised as a man, and who she would be forced to remind herself was
the author of the poems of Byam Warner. Byron, at least, had never
been a common drunkard. Picturesque in even his dissipations, he had
been a superb romantic figure to the last. But this man! She could
hear the struggle and rattle of romance as it died within her. Oh,
that she had never seen Nevis, that her father had lived, that she
could have gone on----! Then a peremptory thought asserted itself. The
time was come for her to live. To dream for twenty-tw