e without the other's stirring with it.

"Neither of us dare be ignoble," Osmonde said, "for 'twould make poor and
base the one who was not so in truth."

"'Twas not the way of my Lady Dunstanwolde to make a man feel that he
stood in church," a frivolous court wit once said, "but in sooth her
Grace of Osmonde has a look in her lustrous eyes which accords not with
scandalous stories and playhouse jests."

And true it was that when they went to town they carried with them the
illumining of the pure fire which burned within their souls, and bore it
all unknowing in the midst of the trivial or designing world, which knew
not what it was that glowed about them, making things bright which had
seemed dull, and revealing darkness where there had been brilliant glare.

They returned not to the house which had been my Lord of Dunstanwolde's,
but went to the duke's own great mansion, and there lived splendidly and
in hospitable state. Royalty honoured them, and all the wits came there,
some of those gentlemen who writ verses and dedications being by no means
averse to meeting noble lords and ladies, and finding in their loves and
graces material which might be useful. 'Twas not only Mr. Addison and
Mr. Steele, Dr. Swift and Mr. Pope, who were made welcome in the stately
rooms, but others who were more humble, not yet having won their spurs,
and how these worshipped her Grace for the generous kindness which was
not the fashion, until she set it, among great ladies, their odes and
verses could scarce express.

"They are so poor," she said to her husband. "They are so poor, and yet
in their starved souls there is a thing which can less bear flouting than
the dull content which rules in others. I know not whether 'tis a curse
or a boon to be born so. 'Tis a bitter thing when the bird that flutters
in them has only little wings. All the more should those who are strong
protect and comfort them."

She comforted so many creatures. In strange parts of the town, where no
other lady would have dared to go to give alms, it was rumoured that she
went and did noble things privately. In dark kennels, where thieves hid
and vagrants huddled, she carried her beauty and her stateliness, the
which when they shone on the poor rogues and victims housed there seemed
like the beams of the warm and golden sun.

Once in a filthy hovel in a black alley she came upon a poor girl dying
of a loathsome ill, and as she stood by her bed of rags she