y, that he quizzed her conversation, and that he
spoke of her with a sneer. A woman always knows where she is utterly
powerless, and shuns a coldly satirical eye as she would shun a Gorgon.
And she was especially eager for clerical notice and friendship, not
merely because that is quite the most respectable countenance to be
obtained in society, but because she really cared about religious
matters, and had an uneasy sense that she was not altogether safe in that
quarter. She had serious intentions of becoming _quite_ pious--without
any reserves--when she had once got her carriage and settlement. Let us
do this one sly trick, says Ulysses to Neoptolemus, and we will be
perfectly honest ever after--

[Greek: all edu gar toi ktema tes uikes labien
tolma dikaioi d' authis ekphanoumetha.]

The Countess did not quote Sophocles, but she said to herself, 'Only this
little bit of pretence and vanity, and then I will be _quite_ good, and
make myself quite safe for another world.'

And as she had by no means such fine taste and insight in theological
teaching as in costume, the Rev. Amos Barton seemed to her a man not only
of learning--_that_ is always understood with a clergyman--but of much
power as a spiritual director. As for Milly, the Countess really loved
her as well as the preoccupied state of her affections would allow. For
you have already perceived that there was one being to whom the Countess
was absorbingly devoted, and to whose desires she made everything else
subservient--namely, Caroline Czerlaski, _nee_ Bridmain.

Thus there was really not much affectation in her sweet speeches and
attentions to Mr. and Mrs. Barton. Still their friendship by no means
adequately represented the object she had in view when she came to Milby,
and it had been for some time clear to her that she must suggest a new
change of residence to her brother.

The thing we look forward to often comes to pass, but never precisely in
the way we have imagined to ourselves. The Countess did actually leave
Camp Villa before many months were past, but under circumstances which
had not at all entered into her contemplation.

Chapter 5

The Rev. Amos Barton, whose sad fortunes I have undertaken to relate,
was, you perceive, in no respect an ideal or exceptional character; and
perhaps I am doing a bold thing to bespeak your sympathy on behalf of a
man who was so very far from remarkable,--a man whose virtues were not
her