he is still to be seen occasionally at
evening parties and afternoon teas in the houses of her friends. She
also becomes the mother of two children, a boy and a girl. After her
second confinement she is prostrated by a slight illness, and during her
convalescence she makes up her mind that life is made tolerable only by
illness and the delicate attentions that accompany it. She is confirmed
in this opinion by the discovery that her figure is no longer adapted to
the prevailing fashion of everyday dress, and that her complexion looks
better in her own room and beneath her own arrangement of curtains than
in the vulgar glare of unmitigated daylight. She therefore enters with a
light heart and a practically unimpaired constitution, upon a prolonged
period of tea-gowns, _chaises longues_, and half-lights, and is
recognised everywhere as an Invalid.

Henceforward she takes no concern in the pleasant labours or the social
amenities of life. The busy hum of the great world beats outside her
chamber, men and women are born, and marry and die, society may be
convulsed with scandals, kingdoms may totter to their fall in a crash of
wars and tumults, but the Invalid lies through the tedious days propped
on pillows, and recks only of her own comfort. Her husband is raised to
high office in the Government of the day, her boy plays cricket at
Lord's or rows in his University Eight, her daughter grows in years and
beauty, but she herself reposes, strong in the blessed luxury of feeble
health, and in the impenetrable selfishness with which she exacts a
minute and unswerving devotion from those who surround her.

But her life is not altogether or even chiefly passed in England. Every
year with the approach of autumn she flits to the Riviera. Three slaves,
her husband, her daughter, and her maid, follow humbly the triumphal
procession of her invalid carriage, and thus she arrives at the charming
villa where for the next few months she will hold her court. For the
confirmed invalid is a more highly exalted being in Nice than in London.
Whereas beneath our own dull skies there is still some merit in being
robust and healthy, in the South of France, precedence both in rank and
social influence, often varies directly according to the nature and
length of an illness. The Invalid Lady, therefore, is in an unassailable
position, and may permit to herself slight indulgences, which in London,
might wreck her career as an invalid. She establishes a