re were generally sparks. The trouble originated partly from Mrs.
Burton's impulsiveness and want of tact. She could not help dragging
in her religion at all sorts of unseasonable times. She would introduce
into her conversation and letters remarks that a moment's reflection
would have told her could only nauseate her Protestant friends. "The
Blessed Virgin," or some holy saint or other was always intruding on the
text. Her head was lost in her heart. She was once in terrible distress
because she had mislaid some trifle that had been touched by the Pope,
though not in more distress, perhaps, than her husband would have been
had he lost his sapphire talisman, and she was most careful to see that
the lamps which she lighted before the images of certain saints never
went out. Burton himself looked upon all this with amused complacency
and observed that she was a figure stayed somehow from the Middle Ages.
If the mediaeval Mrs. Burton liked to illuminate the day with lamps or
camphorated tapers, that, he said, was her business; adding that the
light of the sun was good enough for him. He objected at first to her
going to confession, but subsequently made no further reference to the
subject. Once, even, in a moment of weakness, he gave her five pounds to
have masses said for her dead brother; just as one might give a child a
penny to buy a top. He believed in God, and tried to do what he thought
right, fair and honourable, not for the sake of reward, as he used to
say, but simply because it was right, fair and honourable. Occasionally
he accompanied his wife to mass, and she mentions that he always bowed
his head at "Hallowed by Thy Name," which "shows," as Dr. Johnson would
have commented, "that he had good principles." Mrs. Burton generally
called her husband "Dick," but frequently, especially in letters, he is
"The Bird," a name which he deserved, if only on account of his roving
propensities. Often, however, for no reason at all, she called
him "Jimmy," and she was apt in her admiration of him and pride
of possession, to Dick and Jimmy it too lavishly among casual
acquaintances. Indeed, the tyranny of her heart over her head will force
itself upon our notice at every turn. It is pleasant to be able to state
that Mrs. Burton and Burton's "dear Louisa" (Mrs. Segrave) continued to
be the best of friends, and had many a hearty laugh over bygone petty
jealousies. One day, after calling on Mrs. Segrave, Burton and his
wife, who