t to him an hour after the delivery of his own; a pleasing
promptitude, showing signs of repentance, and suggesting to the General
instantly some sharp sarcasms upon women, which he had come upon
in quotations in the papers and the pulpit, his two main sources of
information.

Instead of handing back the card to the maid, he stuck it in his hat and
went on digging.

The first of a series of letters containing shameless realistic
caricatures was handed to him the afternoon following. They came fast
and thick. Not a day's interval of grace was allowed. Niobe under the
shafts of Diana was hardly less violently and mortally assailed. The
deadliness of the attack lay in the ridicule of the daily habits of one
of the most sensitive of men, as to his personal appearance, and the
opinion of the world. He might have concealed the sketches, but he could
not have concealed the bruises, and people were perpetually asking the
unhappy General what he was saying, for he spoke to himself as if he
were repeating something to them for the tenth time.

'I say,' said he, 'I say that for a lady, really an educated lady, to
sit, as she must--I was saying, she must have sat in an attic to have
the right view of me. And there you see--this is what she has done.
This is the last, this is the afternoon's delivery. Her ladyship has
me correctly as to costume, but I could not exhibit such a sketch to
ladies.'

A back view of the General was displayed in his act of digging.

'I say I could not allow ladies to see it,' he informed the gentlemen,
who were suffered to inspect it freely.

'But you see, I have no means of escape; I am at her mercy from morning
to night,' the General said, with a quivering tongue, 'unless I stay at
home inside the house; and that is death to me, or unless I abandon the
place, and my lease; and I shall--I say, I shall find nowhere in England
for anything like the money or conveniences such a gent--a residence
you would call fit for a gentleman. I call it a bi... it is, in short, a
gem. But I shall have to go.'

Young Rolles offered to expostulate with his aunt Angela.

The General said, 'Tha... I thank you very much. I would not have her
ladyship suppose I am so susceptible. I hardly know,' he confessed
pitiably, 'what it is right to say, and what not--what not. I-I-I never
know when I am not looking a fool. I hurry from tree to tree to shun the
light. I am seriously affected in my appetite. I say, I shall have t