er neck was a-flame with the emotion.

"He never married?" said Lady Lackington.

"No!" said Lady Grace, without turning her head. And there was a silence
on both sides.

Oh dear! how much of the real story of our lives passes without
expression--how much of the secret mechanism of our hearts moves without
a sound in the machinery!

"Poor fellow!" said Lady Lackington, at last, "his lot is just as sad as
your own. I mean," added she, "that he feels it so."

There was no answer, and she resumed. "Not but men generally treat
these things lightly enough. They have their clubs, and their Houses
of Parliament, and their shooting. Are you ill, dearest?" cried she, as
Lady Grace tottered feebly back and sauk into a chair.

"No," said she, in a faint voice, "I'm only tired!" And there was an
inexpressible melancholy in the tone as she spoke it.

"And I'm tired too!" said Lady Lackington, drearily. "There is a tyranny
in the routine of these places quite insupportable--the hours, the
discipline, the diet, and, worse than all, the dreadful people one meets
with." Though Lady Grace did not seem very attentive, this was a theme
the speaker loved to improve, and so she proceeded to discuss the house
and its inhabitants in all freedom. French, Russians, and Italians--all
were passed in review, and very smartly criticised, till she arrived at
"those atrocious O'Reillys, that my Lord will persist in threatening to
present to me. Now one knows horrid people when they are very rich, or
very well versed in some speculation or other--mines, or railroads,
or the like--and when their advice is so much actual money in your
pocket--just, for instance, as my Lord knows that Mr. Davenport Dunn--"

"Oh! he's a great ally of Mr. Twining; at least, I have heard his name a
hundred times in connexion with business matters."

"You never saw him?"

"No."

"Nor I, but once; but I confess to have some curiosity to know him. They
tell me he can do anything he pleases with each House of Parliament,
and has no inconsiderable influence in a sphere yet higher. It is quite
certain that the old Duke of Wycombe's affairs were all set to rights by
his agency, and Lady Muddleton's divorce bill was passed by his means."

The word "divorce" seemed to rally Lady Grace from her fit of musing,
and she said, "Is that certain?"

"Julia herself says so, that's all. He got a bill, or an act, or clause,
or whatever you call it, inserted, by which she succeede