ossible to support
the length of the service; might, however, be reckoned in subscriptions
for all the charities, and left her pew open to poor people, and none
but the poor. She had travelled over Europe, and knew the East. Sketches
in watercolours of the scenes she had visited adorned her walls, and
a pair of pistols, that she had found useful, she affirmed, lay on the
writing-desk in her drawing-room. General Ople gathered from the rector
that she had a great contempt for men: yet it was curiously varied with
lamentations over the weakness of women. 'Really she cannot possibly be
an example of that,' said the General, thinking of the pistols.

Now, we learn from those who have studied women on the chess-board, and
know what ebony or ivory will do along particular lines, or hopping,
that men much talked about will take possession of their thoughts; and
certainly the fact may be accepted for one of their moves. But the whole
fabric of our knowledge of them, which we are taught to build on this
originally acute perception, is shattered when we hear, that it is
exactly the same, in the same degree, in proportion to the amount of
work they have to do, exactly the same with men and their thoughts in
the case of women much talked about. So it was with General Ople, and
nothing is left for me to say except, that there is broader ground
than the chessboard. I am earnest in protesting the similarity of the
singular couples on common earth, because otherwise the General is in
peril of the accusation that he is a feminine character; and not simply
was he a gallant officer, and a veteran in gunpowder strife, he was
also (and it is an extraordinary thing that a genuine humility did not
prevent it, and did survive it) a lord and conqueror of the sex. He had
done his pretty bit of mischief, all in the way of honour, of course,
but hearts had knocked. And now, with his bright white hair, his
close-brushed white whiskers on a face burnt brown, his clear-cut
features, and a winning droop of his eyelids, there was powder in him
still, if not shot.

There was a lamentable susceptibility to ladies' charms. On the other
hand, for the protection of the sex, a remainder of shyness kept
him from active enterprise and in the state of suffering, so long as
indications of encouragement were wanting. He had killed the soft ones,
who came to him, attracted by the softness in him, to be killed: but
clever women alarmed and paralyzed him. Their apt