inspiring sisterhood until the thought of them threw another shade on
him.

What champion was she to look to? To whom but to Mr. Everard Romfrey?

It was with a spasm of delighted reflection that she hit on Mr. Romfrey.
He was like a discovery to her. With his strength and skill, his robust
common sense and rough shrewd wit, his prompt comparisons, his chivalry,
his love of combat, his old knightly blood, was not he a match, and an
overmatch, for the ramping Radical who had tangled Nevil in his rough
snares? She ran her mind over Mr. Romfrey's virtues, down even to his
towering height and breadth. Could she but once draw these two giants
into collision in Nevil's presence, she was sure it would save him. The
method of doing it she did not stop to consider: she enjoyed her triumph
in the idea.

Meantime she had passed from Dr. Shrapnel to Miss Denham, and carried on
a conversation becomingly.

Tea had been made in the garden, and she had politely sipped half a cup,
which involved no step inside the guilty house, and therefore no distress
to her antagonism. The sun descended. She heard the doctor reciting.
Could it be poetry? In her imagination the sombre hues surrounding an
incendiary opposed that bright spirit. She listened, smiling
incredulously. Miss Denham could interpret looks, and said, 'Dr.
Shrapnel is very fond of those verses.'

Rosamund's astonishment caused her to say, 'Are they his own?'--a piece
of satiric innocency at which Miss Denham laughed softly as she answered,
'No.'