pray? But her voice is much diviner than anything you have seen of her."

"I see, I see. You are jealous. No man must presume to think
that he can paint your ideal. This is serious, my friend!
Your great-aunt! `Der Neffe als Onkel' in a tragic sense--ungeheuer!"

"You and I shall quarrel, Naumann, if you call that lady my aunt again."

"How is she to be called then?"

"Mrs. Casaubon."

"Good. Suppose I get acquainted with her in spite of you, and find
that she very much wishes to be painted?"

"Yes, suppose!" said Will Ladislaw, in a contemptuous undertone,
intended to dismiss the subject. He was conscious of being irritated
by ridiculously small causes, which were half of his own creation.
Why was he making any fuss about Mrs. Casaubon? And yet he felt
as if something had happened to him with regard to her. There are
characters which are continually creating collisions and nodes
for themselves in dramas which nobody is prepared to act with them.
Their susceptibilities will clash against objects that remain
innocently quiet.



CHAPTER XX.

"A child forsaken, waking suddenly,