ay of life. Diana sent
her word to name her day, and she would have her choicest to meet her
dearest. They were in the early days of December, not the best of times
for improvized gatherings. Emma wanted, however, to taste them as they
cropped; she was also, owing to her long isolation, timid at a notion of
encountering the pick of the London world, prepared by Tony to behold 'a
wonder more than worthy of them,' as her friend unadvisedly wrote. That
was why she came unexpectedly, and for a mixture of reasons, went to an
hotel. Fatality designed it so. She was reproached, but she said: 'You
have to write or you entertain at night; I should be a clog and fret
you. My hotel is Maitland's; excellent; I believe I am to lie on the
pillow where a crowned head reposed! You will perceive that I am proud
as well as comfortable. And I would rather meet your usual set of
guests.'

'The reason why I have been entertaining at night is, that Percy is
harassed and requires enlivening,' said Diana. 'He brings his friends.
My house is open to them, if it amuses him. What the world says, is past
a thought. I owe him too much.'

Emma murmured that the world would soon be pacified.

Diana shook her head. 'The poor man is better; able to go about his
affairs; and I am honestly relieved. It lays a spectre. As for me, I
do not look ahead. I serve as a kind of secretary to Percy. I labour
at making abstracts by day, and at night preside at my suppertable. You
would think it monotonous; no incident varies the course we run. I have
no time to ask whether it is happiness. It seems to bear a resemblance.'

Emma replied: 'He may be everything you tell me. He should not have
chosen the last night of the Opera to go to your box and sit beside
you till the fall of the curtain. The presence at the Opera of a man
notoriously indifferent to music was enough in itself.'

Diana smiled with languor. 'You heard of that? But the Opera was The
Puritani, my favourite. And he saw me sitting in Lady Pennon's box
alone. We were compromised neck-deep already. I can kiss you, my own
Emmy, till I die; 'but what the world says, is what the wind says.
Besides he has his hopes.... If I am blackened ever so thickly, he can
make me white. Dear me! if the world knew that he comes here almost
nightly! It will; and does it matter? I am his in soul; the rest is
waste-paper--a half-printed sheet.'

'Provided he is worthy of such devotion!'

'He is absolute worthiness. H