rgie, throwing
the invitations in question across the breakfast-table to her husband.
It is quite a week later, and she has almost settled down into the
conventional married woman, though not altogether. To be entirely
married--that is, sedate and sage--is quite beyond Georgie. Just now
some worrying thought is oppressing her, and spoiling the flavor of
her tea; her kidney loses its grace, her toast its crispness. She
peeps at Dorian from behind the huge silver urn that seeks jealously
to conceal her from view, and says, plaintively,--

"Is the duchess a very grand person, Dorian?"

"She is an awfully fat person, at all events," says Dorian,
cheerfully. "I never saw any one who could beat her in that line.
She'd take a prize, I think. She is not a bad old thing when in a good
temper, but that is so painfully seldom. Will you go?"

"I don't know,"--doubtfully. Plainly, she is in the lowest depths of
despair. "I--I--think I would rather not."

"I think you had better, darling."

"But you said just now she was always in a bad temper."

"Always? Oh, no; I am sure I couldn't have said that. And, besides,
she won't go for you, you know, even if she is. The duke generally
comes in for it. And by this time he rather enjoys it, I suppose,--as
custom makes us love most things."

"But, Dorian, really now, what is she like?"

"I can't say that: it is a tremendous question. I don't know what she
is; I only know what she is not."

"What, then?"

"'Fashioned so slenderly, young and so fair,'" quotes he, promptly. At
which they both laugh.

"If she is an old dowdy," says Mrs. Branscombe, somewhat irreverently,
"I sha'n't be one scrap afraid of her, and I do so want to go right
over the castle. Somebody--Lord Alfred--would take me, I dare say.
Yes,"--with sudden animation,--"let us go."

"I shall poison Lord Alfred presently," says Dorian, calmly. "Nothing
shall prevent me. Your evident determination to spend your day with
him has sealed his doom. Very well: send an answer, and let us spend a
'nice long happy day in the country.'"

"We are always spending that, aren't we?" says Mrs. Branscombe,
adorably. Then, with a sigh, "Dorian, what shall I wear?"

He doesn't answer. For the moment he is engrossed, being deep in his
"Times," busy studying the murders, divorces, Irish atrocities, and
other pleasantries it contains.

"Dorian, do put down that abominable paper," exclaims she again,
impatiently, leaning her arms on t