sehoods, insults, what not!'

My father accepted the copy of proofs.

'Not a word,--not a line! You spoke of the eleventh hour, Mr. Hickson.
If we are at all near the eleventh, I must be on my way to make my bow
to Lady Wilts; or is it Lady Denewdney's to-night? No, to-morrow night.'

A light of satisfaction came over Mr. Hickson's face at the mention of
my father's visiting both these sovereign ladies.

As soon as we were rid of him, Captain DeWitt exclaimed,

'If that's the Fourth Estate, what's the Realm?'

'The Estate,' pleaded my father, 'is here in its infancy--on all
fours--'

'Prehensile! Egad, it has the vices of the other three besides its own.
Do you mean that by putting it on all fours?'

'Jorian, I have noticed that when you are malignant you are not witty.
We have to thank the man for not subjecting us to a pledge of secresy.
My Lady Wilts will find the proofs amusing. And mark, I do not examine
their contents before submitting them to her inspection. You will
testify to the fact.'

I was unaware that my father played a master-stroke in handing these
proof-sheets publicly to Lady Wilts for her perusal. The incident of
the evening was the display of her character shown by Miss Penrhys in
positively declining to quit the house until she likewise had cast her
eye on them. One of her aunts wept. Their carriage was kept waiting an
hour.

'You ask too much of me: I cannot turn her out', Lady Wilts said to her
uncle. And aside to my father, 'You will have to marry her.'

'In heaven's name keep me from marriage, my lady!' I heard him reply.

There was sincerity in his tone when he said that.

CHAPTER XXII. CONCLUSION OF THE BATH EPISODE

The friends of Miss Penrhys were ill advised in trying to cry down a man
like my father. Active persecution was the breath of life to him. When
untroubled he was apt to let both his ambition and his dignity slumber.
The squibs and scandal set afloat concerning him armed his wit, nerved
his temper, touched him with the spirit of enterprise; he became a new
creature. I lost sight of certain characteristics which I had begun to
ponder over critically. I believed with all my heart that circumstances
were blameable for much that did not quite please me. Upon the question
of his magnanimity, as well as of his courage, there could not be two
opinions. He would neither retort nor defend himself. I perceived some
grandeur in his conduct, without, however, appreciating