day of trial with India. Mrs. Pagnell assumed an air of studious
interest; she struck in to give her niece a lead, that Lord Ormont might
know his countess capable of joining the driest of subjects occupying
exalted minds. Aminta did not follow her; and she was extricated
gallantly by the gentlemen in turn.

The secretary behaved with a pretty civility. Aminta shook herself to
think tolerantly of him when he, after listening to the suggestion, put
interrogatively, that we should profit by Hannibal's example and train
elephants to serve as a special army corps for the perfect security of
our priceless Indian Empire, instanced the danger likely to result from
their panic fear of cannon, and forbore to consult Lord Ormont's eye.

Mrs. Pagnell knew that she had put her foot into it; but women advised of
being fools in what they say, are generally sustained by their sense of
the excellent motive which impelled them. Even to the Countess of
Ormont, she could have replied, "We might have given them a higher idea
of us"--if, that meant, the Countess of Ormont had entered the field
beside her, to the exclusion of a shrinking Aminta. She hinted as much
subsequently, and Aminta's consciousness of the troth was touched. The
young schoolmaster's company sat on her spirits, deadened her vocabulary.
Her aunt spoke of passing the library door and hearing the two gentlemen
loudly laughing. It seemed subserviency on the fallen young hero's part.
His tastes were low. He frequented the haunts of boxing men; her lord
informed her of his having made, or of his making, matches to run or swim
or walk certain distances against competitors or within a given time.
He had also half a dozen boys or more in tow, whom he raced out of town
on Sundays; a nucleus of the school he intended to form.

But will not Achilles become by comparison a common rushlight where was a