affairs, being a republican of the reddest dye. He was opposed to all
privilege, and indeed to all orders of men, except dukes, who were a
necessity. He was also strongly in favor of the equal division of all
property, except land. Liberty depended on land, and the greater the
land-owners, the greater the liberty of a country. He would hold forth
on this topic even with energy, amazed at any one differing from him;
"As if a fellow could have too much land," he would urge, with a voice
and glance which defied contradiction. St. Aldegonde had married for
love, and he loved his wife, but he was strongly in favor of woman's
rights and their extremest consequences. It was thought that he had
originally adopted these latter views with the amiable intention of
piquing Lady St. Aldegonde; but if so, he had not succeeded. Beaming
with brightness, with the voice and airiness of a bird, and a cloudless
temper, Albertha St. Aldegonde had from the first hour of her marriage,
concentrated her intelligence, which was not mean, on one object; and
that was, never to cross her husband on any conceivable topic. They had
been married several years, and she treated him as a darling spoiled
child. When he cried for the moon, it was promised him immediately;
however irrational his proposition, she always assented to it, though
generally by tact and vigilance she guided him in the right direction.
Nevertheless, St. Aldegonde was sometimes in scrapes; but then he always
went and told his best friend, whose greatest delight was to extricate
him from his perplexities and embarrassments.



CHAPTER 22


Although Lothair was not in the slightest degree shaken in his