well out of the adventure. I can't tell you how much more and more
your attitude to him, in the midst of all this, shines out by
contrast. I never willingly talk to these people about him, but
see what a comfort I find it to scribble to you! I appreciate it--
it keeps me warm; there are no fires in the house. Mrs. Wimbush
goes by the calendar, the temperature goes by the weather, the
weather goes by God knows what, and the Princess is easily heated.
I've nothing but my acrimony to warm me, and have been out under an
umbrella to restore my circulation. Coming in an hour ago I found
Lady Augusta Minch rummaging about the hall. When I asked her what
she was looking for she said she had mislaid something that Mr.
Paraday had lent her. I ascertained in a moment that the article
in question is a manuscript, and I've a foreboding that it's the
noble morsel he read me six weeks ago. When I expressed my
surprise that he should have bandied about anything so precious (I
happen to know it's his only copy--in the most beautiful hand in
all the world) Lady Augusta confessed to me that she hadn't had it
from himself, but from Mrs. Wimbush, who had wished to give her a
glimpse of it as a salve for her not being able to stay and hear it
read.

"'Is that the piece he's to read,' I asked, 'when Guy Walsingham
arrives?'

"'It's not for Guy Walsingham they're waiting now, it's for Dora
Forbes,' Lady Augusta said. 'She's coming, I believe, early to-
morrow. Meanwhile Mrs. Wimbush has found out about him, and is
actively wiring to him. She says he also must hear him.'

"'You bewilder me a little,' I replied; 'in the age we live in one