into him and laid him flat.  It pleased him to assure her that his mates were men of their word, and had promised to pay the old lord with a ‘rouse’ for it, nothing worse.  Her father used to speak of the ’clean hearts of the English’ as to the husbanding of revenge; that is, the ’no spot of bad blood’ to vitiate them.  Captain John Peter seconded all good-humoured fighters ‘for the long account’:  they will surely win; and it was one of his maxims:  ’My foe can spoil my face; he beats me if he spoils my temper.’

Recalling the scene of her bridal day—­the two strong Englishmen at the shake of hands, that had spoiled one another’s faces, she was enlightened with a comprehension of her father’s love for the people; seeing the spiritual of the gross ugly picture, as not every man can do, and but a warrior Joan among women.  Chillon shall teach the Spanish people English heartiness, she thought.  Lord Fleetwood’s remarks on the expedition would have sufficed to stamp it righteous with her; that was her logic of the low valuation of him.  She fancied herself absolutely released at his departure.  Neither her sister Riette nor her friend Owain, administering sentiment and common sense to her by turns, could conceive how the passion for the recovery of her brother’s military name fed the hope that she might aid in it, how the hope fed the passion.  She had besides her hunger to be at the work she could do; her Chillon’s glory for morning sky above it.

Such was the mind Lady Arpington brought the world’s wisdom to bear upon; deeming it in the end female only in its wildness and obstinacy.  Carinthia’s answers were few, barely varied.  Her repetition of ’my brother’ irritated the great lady, whose argument was directed to make her see that these duties toward her brother were primarily owing to her husband, the man she would reclaim and could guide.  And the Countess of Fleetwood’s position, her duty to society, her dispensing of splendid hospitality, the strengthening of her husband to do his duty to the nation, the saving of him from a fatal step-from Rome; these were considerations for a reasonable woman to weigh before she threw up all to be off on the maddest of adventures.  ‘Inconceivable, my dear child!’ Lady Arpington proceeded until she heard herself as droning.

Carinthia’s unmoved aspect of courteous attention appeared to invoke the prolongation of the sermon it criticized.  It had an air of reversing their positions while she listened to the charge of folly, and incidentally replied.

Her reason for not fearing Roman Catholic encroachments was, she said, her having known good Catholics in the country she came from.  For herself, she should die professing the faith of her father and mother.  Behind her correct demeanour a rustic intelligence was exhibited.  She appreciated her duty to her marriage oath:  ’My husband’s honour is quite safe with me.’  Neither England nor religion, nor woman’s proper devotion to