‘Have you been long in Florence?’ asked Lady Rowley in her softest voice.

‘A pretty considerable time, ma’am, that is, since the fall began.’

What a voice; what an accent; and what words!  Was there a man living with sufficient courage to take this woman to England, and shew her to the world as Lady Peterborough?

‘Are you going to remain in Italy for the summer?’ continued Lady Rowley.

’I guess I shall or, perhaps, locate myself in the purer atmosphere of the Swiss mountains.’

‘Switzerland in summer must certainly be much pleasanter.’

‘I was thinking at the moment of the political atmosphere,’ said Miss Petrie; ’for although, certainly, much has been done in this country in the way of striking off shackles and treading sceptres under foot, still, Lady Rowley, there remains here that pernicious thing—­a king.  The feeling of the dominion of a single man and that of a single woman is, for aught I know, worse with me, so clouds the air, that the breath I breathe fails to fill my lungs.’  Wallachia, as she said this, put forth her hand, and raised her chin, and extended her arm.  She paused, feeling that justice demanded that Lady Rowley should have a right of reply.  But Lady Rowley had not a word to say, and Wallachia Petrie went on.  ’I cannot adapt my body to the sweet savours and the soft luxuries of the outer world with any comfort to my inner self, while the circumstances of the society around me are oppressive to my spirit.  When our war was raging all around me I was light-spirited as the lark that mounts through the morning sky.’

‘I should have thought it was very dreadful,’ said Lady Rowley.

’Full of dread, of awe, and of horror, were those fiery days of indiscriminate slaughter; but they were not days of desolation, because hope was always there by our side.  There was a hope in which the soul could trust, and the trusting soul is ever light and buoyant.’

‘I dare say it is,’ said Lady Rowley.

’But apathy, and serfdom, and kinghood, and dominion, drain the fountain of its living springs, and the soul becomes like the plummet of lead, whose only tendency is to hide itself in subaqueous mud and unsavoury slush.’

Subaqueous mud and unsavoury slush!  Lady Rowley repeated the words to herself as she made good her escape, and again expressed to herself her conviction that it could not possibly be so.  The ’subaqueous mud and unsavoury slush,’ with all that had gone before it about the soul, was altogether unintelligible to her; but she knew that it was American buncom of a high order of eloquence, and she told herself again and again that it could not be so.  She continued to keep her eyes upon Mr Glascock, and soon saw him again talking to Nora.  It was hardly possible, she thought, that Nora should speak to him with so much animation, or he to her, unless there was some feeling between them which, if properly handled, might