still more ruthless element. I had compressed
into half an hour the opposite tortures of
Dante's Inferno, and—still undecided as to
whether ice or fire were the more potent
demon—I took my preliminary walk, and
returned to breakfast. I was then ushered
into the public room, and found myself in the
society of my fellow victims and of Dixit, Q.C.

Mr. Dixit, in his sonorous and declamatory
manner, was inveighing against the English
climate when I entered. He addressed himself
to no one in particular, but was engaged
in putting down the sun for making its
appearance in these regions, and for supposing
that it shone.

Judging from the buzz of applause which
followed Mr. Dixit's sally, one might have
supposed that the sun had actually slunk
away, very much ashamed of himself. Lady
Ursula Price—a tall, thin, keen, privileged
person, who took her chocolate in front of the
fire, and acted as a screen to the rest of the
company—tapped applause on the fender
with an unexceptionable brodequin. The
two Misses Silversley—who looked very much
like Naiads that had not yet come out—
telegraphed applause to Silversley père in a
giggle; Silversley père—a bald gentleman
with an expression of bland fatuity—interjected,
"Ha, ha, good!" whereupon another
Silversley—fils et frère, twenty-five and
blasé—expended the relics of his enthusiasm
in the ejaculation "prime!"

I was sufficiently ignorant and daring to
dissent from Mr. Dixit's opinion, and to
suppose that I might do so upon terms of social
equality. "I fancy there is a charm, after
all," I said, "in the captiousness and variety
of our English skies. Look at their agreeable
surprises, the soft, smiling days that
come upon you in February like unexpected
friends, the chequered lights of half-clouded
summer noons, so preferable to unmitigated
glare."

When I paused there was a dead silence.
I was the focus of every eye in the room.
Mr. Dixit, who had recurred to the Times,
which he was reading through his glass,
quietly directed that instrument towards me,
and surveyed me as if I had been a curiosity
in a museum. Finding, I suppose, nothing to
repay his investigation, he withdrew it, and
said, "The House was counted out last night
on the Malt Tax, Lady Ursula."

But I was not yet abashed. I detected in
the face of a young lady opposite to me a sort
of good-natured interest, and addressed myself
to her. I hoped she was patriotic enough
to come to the defence of our climate.

"What! After Mr. Dixit's condemnation?"
she replied, archly.

"On account of it," I said.

She looked at me with an expression both
of amusement and pity. "Do you seriously
mean that you would enter the lists with
Mr. Dixit?"

I was about to rejoin, but at this crisis the
awful voice of the putter-down hushed every
other.

"I will relieve this gentleman of all doubt
on that point, Miss Martindale. There must
be two parties to such an encounter, and I
am as little likely to accept the challenge of
your new acquaintance as to send him mine.
Apropos of weather, though, Miss Martindale"
— here he tempered his majesty to the
capacity of feminine eyes, and became playful
—"what a day for sketching. Did you
see Miss Martindale's last sketch of Barnwood
Abbey, Lady Ursula? Quite charming!
If she will indeed tilt with me in
defence of England, her best lance would be
her pencil."

I could not but admire the art with which
Mr. Dixit had managed to insult me without
using one word that I could easily resent.
Even the repartee I meditated was foiled in
advance. Lady Ursula's grin of satisfaction
at my chastisement, and the light laugh of
the company, Miss Martindale excepted, had
scarcely ceased, when the Q.C. had glided
into another subject, and made retort
impossible. For myself, I own to having been
annoyed. I resolved, as the most dignified
mark of my displeasure, quietly to ignore
Mr. Dixit during my stay at Langham Park.

I was not long in detecting, by the playful
wiles of Lady Ursula towards the putter-down,
that he was an object to her either of
wholesome fear or of sentimental admiration.
The former had perhaps issued from the
latter, for Lady Ursula was just the person
to confound arrogance with superiority. I
observed, too, unguarded moments when she
could not restrain her quick acerbity of tone
even when addressing Mr. Dixit. As these
occasions generally occurred after that gentleman
had indulged in too long or too bland
conversation with Miss Martindale, I further
surmised that she was perhaps the inconvenient
bit of rock in Lady Ursula's current
of true love which prevented that shallow
stream from running quite smoothly. And,
indeed, her jealousy (if she were jealous) was
not unreasonable. In the first place, the
relict of the late Sir Josiah Price, M.D., was
decidedly sloping down from that meridian
of beauty to which Miss Martindale was
attaining. Again, the latter—though looking
somewhat delicate from recent indisposition
—had at once a sprightliness of fancy, and a
composure of manner, which both won and
secured your interest. She was, in fact, one
of those rare persons in whom there is
always something to discover. When I add
to such charms those of an intelligent and
pleasing face, a graceful and elastic carriage,
and a bachelor uncle whose fabulous wealth
was evidently destined for his niece, you may
infer that Lady Ursula had tolerable grounds
for apprehension.

I had resided at Langham Park for a
month. New comers of the most various
characters and classes had arrived in that