Diana of the Crossways, v1

e the crush for you,' said Lady Dunstane to Diana. 'I don't s

teness of the hour. She murmured, to sof

ly, for a man who had no loaded design, marshalling the troops in his active and capacious cranium, he fell upon calculations of his income, present and prospective, while she sat at the table and he stood behind her. Others were wrangling for pl

day is an opera of Carini's,' she said, in full acco

prospects of an increase there; no one died there, no elderly martyr for the advancement of his juniors could be persuaded to die; they were too tough to think of retir

are among the best ever written-or ever published: the raciest English I know. Frank, str

y we don't sufficiently cultivate the art. We require t

onetcy has no right to set his reckoning on deaths:-if he does, he becomes a sort of meditative assassin. But what were the Fates about when they planted a man of the ability of Tom Redwor

n character? I won't own that even. It brings out some but under excitement, when you have not always the real man.-Pray don't sneer at domestic life. Well

ds and death,'

the civil

e soldier-hero aims at a person

gets

is not

e is no lon

is t

ies known to him of civilian heroes, and won her assent to the heroical title for their deeds, but it was languid, or not so bright as the deeds deserved-or as the young lady could look; and he insisted on the civilian hero, impelled by some unconscious motive to make her see the thing he thought, also the thing he was-his plain mind and matter-of-fact nature. Possibly she caught a glimp

es shot him to the yonder side of a gulf. Not knowing why, for he had no scheme, desperate or other, in his head, the least affrighted of men was frightened by her tastes, and by her aplomb, her inoffensiveness in freedom of manner and self-sufficiency-sign of purest breeding: and by her easy, peerless vivacity, her proofs of descent from the blood of Dan Merion-a wildish blood. The candour of the look of her eyes in speaking, her power of looking forthright at men, and looking the thing she spoke, and the play of her voluble lips, the significant repose of her lips in silence, her weighing of the words he uttered, for a moment before the prompt apposite

fellow's name' he he

it. He cocked his eye at Mr. Redworth's quick stare. 'Malkin!' And now we'll see whether the interi

d him, and that's to call the lady a jilt. There's not a point of difference, not a shade. I overheard him. I happened by the blessing of Providence to be by when he nam

ay you're the donkey

ut gruffly, through

g on. He became frigid, he politely bowed: 'Two, sir, if you haven't the gra

to the deuce!' M

p o' the cheek pe

I keep my pistols for bandits and law-breakers. Here,' said Mr. Redworth, better inspired as to the way of t

ner, Mr. Sullivan Smith proposed that they should go outside as soon as Mr. Redworth had finished supper-quite finished supper: for the reason

ly hypothetical. 'If you fight, you're a

will

on't

necessity to put a bullet or a couple of inches of steel through the man you've drunk with. And what's in your favour, she danced wit

eticall

ppositi

tain

heel moodily to wander in search of the foe. How one sane man could name another a donkey

edworth to have a talk over

among them, and you and I knew Jack Derry, who was good at most things. But the burlesque Irishman can't be ca

of Mr. Sullivan Smith, whom, as a

ir Lukin. 'I know nothing of the man h

his opinion, besides Miss Merion were parading; he sketched

Merion's name to be mi

wor

tune in England,' said Sir Lu

no mean report, startled the company of supping gentlemen. At the pitch of his voice,

, and then, holding her prisoner to 'm, he sulks, the dirty dogcat goes and sulks, and he won't dance and won't do anything but screech up in corners that he's jilted. He said the word. Dozens of gentl

emity by the worrying, stood in braced preparation for the E

if you lay a finger on me I

sed the ring about him, to put his adversary entirely in the wrong before provoking the act of war. And then, as one intending gently to remonstrate, he wa

, man down, he challenged the race of short-legged, thickset, wooden-gated curmudgeons: and let it be pugilism if their white livers shivered at the no

ffort,' Redworth said; and he observed generally: '

'll come along with me and a couple of friends. The

nd come alone,

ried up to Redworth, who had no doubt of

ne and Diana, after hearing in some anxiety of the hubbub below, beheld them enteri

able of behaving like a man of the world and a gentleman. Only he has, or thinks he has, like lots of his countrymen, a raw wound-something that itches to be grazed. Champagne on that! . . . Irishmen, as far as I have seen of them, are, like horses, bundl

Irish character. We English are not bad horsemen. It's a

sition to put your metho

There's little

g stick, a young lady's partner. By which he humbly understood that her friend approved him. A gentle delirium enfolded his brain. A householder's life is often begun on eight hundred a year: on less: on much less:-sometimes on nothing but resolution to make a fitting income, carving out

and the Irish; and better than I thought I should. St. Ge

ad of the sign

her interpretation to remain personal, for the sake of a

eturning to England?

tane's guest fo

s an estate in Surrey. He ta

t belie

entertained a sentiment amounting to

ng his enjoyment of a flattering scene. At last Sir Lukin had the word from him, and came to his wife. Diana slipped across the floor to her accommodating chapero

orth. At the portico rang a wakening cheer, really worth hearing. The rain it rained, and hats were formless,' as in the first conception of the edifice, backs were damp, boots liquidly musical, the pipe of consolation smoked with difficulty, with mu

amrock, after the arti

say, be

ing over him, in gratitude for a timely word well sa