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am obliged to be sympathetic; I haven’t the spirit to be anything else. Now Clare is one of nature’s aristocrats. In spite of her stumpy figure and more than tendency to embonpoint—as the old novels used to put it—for in fact she has passed the tendency point, and arrived there long ago; in spite of her brusque manner and habit of saying just what comes into her head (or it may be, perhaps, in virtue of these qualities); howsoever such things be by sea or land, you can never mistake Mrs. Damon for anyone but a personage. She is never a ‘nice person,’ never ‘a dear little woman,’ never ‘so amiable,’ or even ‘well-informed.’ All these insulting endearments may be, and I dare say often are, applied to me, but Clare is always spoken of with respect, if not veneration. It was rather amusing to see her meet our new neighbours with this specimen of her Vere-de-Vere manner on, for in ordinary life she is not only fond of calling a spade a spade, but even a rake a rake; and when she gets on the subject of her own or her children’s ailments, her tendency towards the realistic school becomes too strongly marked for my comfort.

“Clare, however, is really a delightful companion but for her one foible—her health. Perhaps I ought to say her two foibles, for she is