than I am, think differently.  And, in fact, if I looked only at facts and at the worldly circumstances of the case, I should agree with you all.  But reading the “Apocalypse” as I do, I find myself before a fixed conclusion!’ Imagine this, dearest Isa mine, his bride sitting in a delicate dove-coloured silk on the sofa, as tame as any dove, and not venturing to coo even.  I suppose she thought it quite satisfactory.  What a woman with a brain could be made to suffer under certain casualties!  He quoted simply St. John and Mr. Kinglake!  Mr. Kinglake plainly running a little with St. John.  ’Wasn’t he (Kinglake) a member of Parliament, and a lawyer?’ And if his allegation wasn’t true, and if Napoleon did not propose to Francis Joseph to swap Lombardy for the Rhine provinces, why was there no contradiction on the part of the French Emperor?

Now do mark the necessity of Napoleon’s saying, ’I didn’t really pick Mr. Jones’s pocket of his best foulard last Monday—­no, though it hung out a tempting end.  Pray don’t let the volunteers think so ill of me.’

That would have been ‘like’ our Emperor—­wouldn’t it?

By the way, I had yesterday a crowd of people, and all at once, so that I was in a flutter of weakness, and didn’t get over it quickly.  Mrs. Bruen brought Miss Sewell (Amy Herbert) and Lady Juliana Knox, whom Annunziata takes in as a homoeopathic dose, ’E molto curioso questo cognome, precisamente come la medicina—­nux (tale quale).’  She (Lady Juliana) had just been presented to the Pope, just before his illness, and was much touched, when at the close of the reception of indiscriminately Catholics and Protestants, he prayed a simple prayer in French and gave them all his benediction, ending in a sad humble voice, ‘Priez pour le pape.’

It was touching—­was it not?  Poor old man!  When you feel the human flesh through the ecclesiastical robe, you get into sympathy with him at once.

Miss Sewell will come and see me again, she promised, and then I shall talk with her more.  I couldn’t get at her through the people yesterday.  She is very nice, gentle-looking, cheerful, respectable sort of—­single-womanish person (decidedly single) of the olden type; very small, slim, quiet, with the nearest approach to a poky bonnet possible in this sinful generation.  I, in my confusion, did not glance at her petticoats, but, judging a priori, I should predicate a natural incompatibility with crinoline.  But really I liked her, liked her.  There were gentleness, humility, and conscience—­three great gifts.  Of course we can touch only on remote points; but I hope (for my own sake) we may touch on these, and another day I mean to try.  She said one thing which I liked.  Speaking of convents, she ’considered that women must deteriorate by any separation from men.’  Now that’s not only true, but it is not on the surface of things as seen from her standpoint.