a desirable event; for while he remained
at the Hall, it was but too likely that some accidental collision with
Sir Geoffrey might give rise to a rencontre betwixt them, more fatal
than the last had been.

In the meanwhile, she could not help expressing to Doctor Dummerar
her surprise and sorrow, that all which she had done and attempted, to
establish peace and unanimity betwixt the contending factions, had been
perversely fated to turn out the very reverse of what she had aimed at.

"But for my unhappy invitation," she said, "Bridgenorth would not have
been at the Castle on the morning which succeeded the feast, would not
have seen the Countess, and would not have incurred the resentment and
opposition of my husband. And but for the King's return, an event which
was so anxiously expected as the termination of all our calamities,
neither the noble lady nor ourselves had been engaged in this new path
of difficulty and danger."

"Honoured madam," said Doctor Dummerar, "were the affairs of this world
to be guided implicitly by human wisdom, or were they uniformly to fall
out according to the conjectures of human foresight, events would no
longer be under the domination of that time and chance, which happen
unto all men, since we should, in the one case, work out our own
purposes to a certainty, by our own skill, and in the other, regulate
our conduct according to the views of unerring prescience. But man is,
while in this vale of tears, like an uninstructed bowler, so to speak,
who thinks to attain the jack, by delivering his bowl straight forward
upon it, being ignorant that there is a concealed bias within the
spheroid, which will make it, in all probability, swerve away, and lose
the cast."

Having spoken this with a sententious air, the Doctor took his
shovel-shaped hat, and went down to the Castle green, to conclude a
match of bowls with Whitaker, which had probably suggested this notable
illustration of the uncertain course of human events.

Two days afterwards, Sir Geoffrey arrived. He had waited at Vale Royal
till he heard of the Countess's being safely embarked for Man, and then
had posted homeward to his Castle and Dame Margaret. On his way, he
learned from some of his attendants, the mode in which his lady had
conducted the entertainment which she had given to the neighbourhood at
his order; and notwithstanding the great deference he usually showed
in cases where Lady Peveril was concerned, he heard of her