the paragraphs.  Reviews of her first literary venture were mentioned once:  ’I was well advised by Mr. Redworth in putting Antonia for authoress.  She is a buff jerkin to the stripes, and I suspect that the signature of D. E. M., written in full, would have cawed woefully to hear that her style is affected, her characters nullities, her cleverness forced, etc., etc.  As it is, I have much the same contempt for poor Antonia’s performance.  Cease penning, little fool!  She writes, “with some comprehension of the passion of love.”  I know her to be a stranger to the earliest cry.  So you see, dear, that utter ignorance is the mother of the Art.  Dialogues “occasionally pointed.”  She has a sister who may do better.—­But why was I not apprenticed to a serviceable profession or a trade?  I perceive now that a hanger-on of the market had no right to expect a happier fate than mine has been.’

On the Nile, in the winter of the year, Diana met the Hon. Percy Dacier.  He was introduced to her at Cairo by Redworth.  The two gentlemen had struck up a House of Commons acquaintanceship, and finding themselves bound for the same destination, had grown friendly.  Redworth’s arrival had been pleasantly expected.  She remarked on Dacier’s presence to Emma, without sketch or note of him as other than much esteemed by Lord and Lady Esquart.  These, with Diana, Redworth, Dacier, the German Eastern traveller Schweizerbarth, and the French Consul and Egyptologist Duriette, composed a voyaging party up the river, of which expedition Redworth was Lady Dunstane’s chief writer of the records.  His novel perceptiveness and shrewdness of touch made them amusing; and his tenderness to the Beauty’s coquettry between the two foreign rivals, moved a deeper feeling.  The German had a guitar, the Frenchman a voice; Diana joined them in harmony.  They complained apart severally of the accompaniment and the singer.  Our English criticized them apart; and that is at any rate to occupy a post, though it contributes nothing to entertainment.  At home the Esquarts had sung duets; Diana had assisted Redworth’s manly chest-notes at the piano.  Each of them declined to be vocal.  Diana sang alone for the credit of the country, Italian and French songs, Irish also.  She was in her mood of Planxty Kelly and Garryowen all the way.  ‘Madame est Irlandaise?’ Redworth heard the Frenchman say, and he owned to what was implied in the answering tone of the question.  ‘We should be dull dogs without the Irish leaven!’ So Tony in exile still managed to do something for her darling Erin.  The solitary woman on her heights at Copsley raised an exclamation of, ‘Oh! that those two had been or could be united!’ She was conscious of a mystic symbolism in the prayer.

She was not apprehensive of any ominous intervention of another.  Writing from Venice, Diana mentioned Mr. Percy Dacier as being engaged to an heiress; ’A Miss Asper, niece of a mighty shipowner, Mr. Quintin Manx, Lady Esquart tells me:  money fabulous, and necessary to a younger son devoured with ambition.  The elder brother, Lord Creedmore, is a common Nimrod, always absent in Hungary, Russia, America, hunting somewhere.  Mr. Dacier will be in the Cabinet with the next Ministry.’  No more of him.  A new work by Antonia was progressing.