rn of the lad with breakfast put an end to her talking for
the time being. When we had finished, the page was again summoned.

"Now then, Lionel, do your spiriting gently."

"I know," said the boy, "I'm not to smash the cups and saucers as I did
yesterday."

The lad collected the breakfast things on a tray with great rapidity,
and disappeared with such a sudden turn round, that I fully anticipated
he would add to yesterday's damage before he was down the stairs.

As soon as he was gone, Lady R--coming up to me, said, "And now let me
have a good look at you, and then I shall be content for some time.
Yes, I was not mistaken, you are a perfect model, and must be my future
heroine. Yours is just the beauty that I required. There, that will
do, now sit down and let us converse. I often have wanted a companion.
As for an amanuensis that is only a nominal task, I write as fast as
most people, and I cannot follow my ideas, let me scribble for life, as
I may say; and as for my writing being illegible, that's the
compositor's concern not mine. It's his business to make it out, and
therefore I never have mine copied. But I wanted a beautiful companion
and friend--I wouldn't have an ugly one for the world, she would do me
as much harm as you will do me service."

"I am sure I hardly know how I am to do you service, Lady R--, if I do
not write for you."

"I daresay not, but when I tell you that I am more than repaid by
looking at you when I feel inclined, you will acknowledge that you do me
service; but we will not enter into metaphysics or psychological
questions just now, it shall all be explained by-and-bye. And now the
first service I ask of you is at once to leap over the dull fortnight of
gradual approaching, which at last ends in intimacy. I have ever held
it to be a proof of the suspiciousness of our natures and unworthy. You
must allow me to call you Valerie at once, and I must entreat of you to
call me Sempronia. Your name is delightful, fit for a first-class
heroine. My real baptismal name is one that I have abjured, and if my
godfathers and godmothers did give it to me, I throw it back to them
with contempt. What do you think it was?--Barbara. Barbara, indeed.
`My mother had a _maid_ called Barbara,' Shakespeare says, and such a
name should be associated with brooms and yellow soap. Call me
Sempronia from this time forward, and you confer a favour on me. And
now I must write a little, so take a book