will understand me when I say that really my affairs require my
absence for some months. This Jemima cannot understand. It is a
perpetual recurrence of questions, why can you not do this, or
that, or the third thing? and, when you have proved to her that
her expedients are totally ineffectual, you have just to begin
the whole round again. Now, do you tell her, dear Lady Bothwell,
that YOU are satisfied. She is, you must confess, one of those
persons with whom authority goes farther than reasoning. Do but
repose a little confidence in me, and you shall see how amply I
will repay it."

Lady Bothwell shook her head, as one but half satisfied. "How
difficult it is to extend confidence, when the basis on which it
ought to rest has been so much shaken! But I will do my best to
make Jemima easy; and further, I can only say that for keeping
your present purpose I hold you responsible both to God and man,"

"Do not fear that I will deceive you," said Sir Philip. "The
safest conveyance to me will be through the general post-office,
Helvoetsluys, where I will take care to leave orders for
forwarding my letters. As for Falconer, our only encounter will
be over a bottle of Burgundy; so make yourself perfectly easy on
his score."

Lady Bothwell could NOT make herself easy; yet she was sensible
that her sister hurt her own cause by TAKING ON, as the
maidservants call it, too vehemently, and by showing before every
stranger, by manner, and sometimes by words also, a
dissatisfaction with her husband's journey that was sure to come
to his ears, and equally certain to displease him. But there was