minded, 'hearing him say, when the House
resembled a Chartist riot, "Let us stand aside and meditate on Life. If
Youth could know, in the season of its reaping of the Pleasures, that it
is but sowing Doctor's bills!"'

Latterly a malady had supervened, and Bob Busby had retired from the
universal to the special;--his mysterious case.

'Assure him, that is endemic. He may be cured of his desire for the
exposition of it,' said Lady Dunstane.

Westlake chimed with her: 'Yes, the charm in discoursing of one's case
is over when the individual appears no longer at odds with Providence.'

'But then we lose our Tragedy,' said Whitmonby.

'Our Comedy too,' added Diana. 'We must consent to be Busbied for the
sake of the instructive recreations.'

'A curious idea, though,' said Sullivan Smith, 'that some of the grand
instructive figures were in their day colossal bores!'

'So you see the marvel of the poet's craft at last?' Diana smiled on
him, and he vowed: 'I'll read nothing else for a month!' Young Rhodes
bade him beware of a deluge in proclaiming it.

They rose from table at ten, with the satisfaction of knowing that
they had not argued, had not wrangled, had never stagnated, and were
digestingly refreshed; as it should be among grown members of the
civilized world, who mean to practise philosophy, making the hour of the
feast a balanced recreation and a regeneration of body and mind.

'Evenings like these are worth a pilgrimage,' Emma said, embracing Tony
outside the drawing-room door. 'I am so glad I came: and if I am strong
enough, invite me again in the Spring. To-morrow early I start for
Copsley, to escape this London air. I shall hope to have you there
soon.'

She was pleased by hearing Tony ask her whether she did not think that
Arthur Rhodes had borne himself well; for it breathed of her simply
friendly soul.

The gentlemen followed Lady Dunstane in a troop, Dacier yielding
perforce the last adieu to young Rhodes.

Five minutes later Diana was in her dressing-room, where she wrote at
night, on the rare occasions now when she was left free for composition.
Beginning to dwell on THE MAN OF TWO MINDS, she glanced at the woman
likewise divided, if not similarly; and she sat brooding. She did not
accuse her marriage of being the first fatal step: her error was the
step into Society without the wherewithal to support her position there.
Girls of her kind, airing their wings above the sphere of their birth,
are