ent with him to the door.

'Well, sir; what is it?'

No doubt he was acting under a momentary weakness he was about to betray
the plot and take his chance of forgiveness; but her towering port, her
commanding aspect, restored his courage. (There may be a contrary view
of the case.) He enclosed her briskly in a connubial hug, and remarked
with mad ecstasy: 'What a duck you are, Harry! What a likeness between
you and your mother.'

Mrs. Cogglesby disengaged herself imperiously. Had he called her aside
for this gratuitous insult? Contrite, he saw his dreadful error.

'Harry! I declare!' was all he was allowed to say. Mrs. Cogglesby
marched back to her chair, and recommenced the repast in majestic
silence.

Andrew sighed; he attempted to do the same. He stuck his fork in the
blanched whiskerage of his marmoset, and exclaimed: 'I can't!'

He was unnoticed.

'You do not object to plain diet?' said Harriet to Louisa.

'Oh, no, in verity!' murmured the Countess. 'However plain it be!
Absence of appetite, dearest. You are aware I partook of luncheon at
mid-day with the Honourable and Reverend Mr. Duffian. You must not look
condemnation at your Louy for that. Luncheon is not conversion!'

Harriet observed that this might be true; but still, to her mind, it was
a mistake to be too intimate with dangerous people. 'And besides,'
she added, 'Mr. Duffian is no longer "the Reverend." We deprive all
renegades of their spiritual titles. His worldly ones let him keep.'

Her superb disdain nettled the Countess.

'Dear Harriet!' she said, with less languor, 'You are utterly and
totally and entirely mistaken. I tell you so positively. Renegade! The
application of such a word to such a man! Oh! and it is false, Harriet
quite! Renegade means one who has gone over to the Turks, my dear. I am
almost certain I saw it in Johnson's Dictionary, or an improvement upon
Johnson, by a more learned author. But there is the fact, if Harriet can
only bring her--shall I say stiff-necked prejudices to envisage it?'

Harriet granted her sister permission to apply the phrases she stood
in need of, without impeaching her intimacy with the most learned among
lexicographers.

'And is there no such thing as being too severe?' the Countess resumed.
'What our enemies call unchristian!'

'Mr. Duffian has no cause to complain of us,' said Harriet.

'Nor does he do so, dearest. Calumny may assail him; you may utterly
denude him--'

'Adam!' interpose