o strike her blow.
Anything for a diversion or a triumph of the moment! He made no way. She
was the better fencer at the tongue.

Yet there was not any abatement of her deference to her brother; and
this little misunderstanding put aside, he was the Rowsley esteemed by
her as the chief of men. She foiled him, it might seem, to exalt him
the more. After he had left the house, visibly annoyed and somewhat
stupefied, she talked of him to her husband, of the soul of chivalry
Rowsley was, the loss to his country. Mr. Eglett was a witness to one of
the altercations, when she, having as usual the dialectical advantage,
praised her brother, to his face, for his magnanimous nature; regretting
only that it could be said he was weak on the woman side of him--which
was, she affirmed, a side proper to every man worth the name; but in his
case his country might complain. Of what?--Well, of a woman.--What
had she done, for the country to complain of her?--Why, then, arts
or graces, she had bewitched and weaned him from his public duty, his
military service, his patriotic ambition.

Lord Ormont's interrogations, heightening the effect of Charlotte's
charge, appeared to Mr. Eglett as a giving of himself over into her
hands; but the earl, after a minute of silence, proved he was a tricky
combatant. It was he who had drawn on Charlotte, that he might have
his opportunity to eulogize--'this lady, whom you continue to call the
woman, after I have told you she is my wife.' According to him, her
appeals, her entreaties, that he should not abandon his profession or
let his ambition rust, had been at one period constant.

He spoke fervently, for him eloquently; and he gained his point; he
silenced Lady Charlotte's tongue, and impressed Mr. Eglett.

When the latter and his wife were alone, he let her see that the
Countess of Ormont was becoming a personage in his consideration.

Lady Charlotte cried out: 'Hear these men where it's a good-looking
woman between the winds! Do you take anything Rowsley says for earnest?
You ought to know he stops at no trifle to get his advantage over you in
a dispute. That 's the soldier in him. It 's victory at any cost!--and I
like him for it. Do you tell me you think it possible my brother Rowsley
would keep smothered years under a bushel the woman he can sit here
magnifying because he wants to lime you and me: you to take his part,
and me to go and call the noble creature decked out in his fine fiction
my