"I've a friend--down there by the lake--to go back to," the Duchess went on, "and I'm on my way to my room to get a letter that I've promised to show him.

I shall immediately bring it down and then in a few minutes be able to relieve you,--I don't leave her alone too much--one doesn't, you know, in a house full of people, a child of that age.

Besides"-- and Mr.
Longdon's interlocutress was even more confiding--"I do want you so very intensely to know her.

You, par exemple, you're what I SHOULD like to give her." Mr.Longdon looked the noble lady, in acknowledgement of her appeal, straight in the face, and who can tell whether or no she acutely guessed from his expression that he recognised this particular juncture as written on the page of his doom ?--whether she heard him inaudibly say "Ah here it is: I knew it would have to come!" She would at any rate have been astute enough, had this miracle occurred, quite to complete his sense for her own understanding and suffer it to make no difference in the tone in which she still confronted him.

"Oh I take the bull by the horns--I know you haven't wanted to know me.