Miss Priscilla did not have paroxysms of this class in her niece's presence, so of course the latter had the less chance of guessing that the cause of her visit to Athabasca Villa had become common property. She did, however, wake up to the fact that Coombe and Maiden were commiserating her. The impertinence of those neighbourhoods! She would have liked to knock their heads together. The worst of it was that no one put commiseration into a concrete form, such as "How is dear Mr. Aiken's infidelity going on?" or "We are so shocked to think how your most sacred affections are being lacerated." Then she might have flown at such like sympathizers with a poker, or got them down and cricked their joints by Ju-jutsu. This practice of talking about everyone else's private affairs to every-other else, never to their proprietor, is good for our father the Devil, but bad for his sons and daughters. Amen. The truth is that, for some unexplained reason, a lady who runs away from her husband gets no sort of credit or glory by doing so, but only puts herself in an uncomfortable position; unless, indeed, she takes up with some other male, preferably a reprobate. Then an unhallowed splendour envelops her, and protects her from the cards of respectability, which has misgivings about her possible effect on its sons and husbands. We wonder, is this what is meant when one hears that some lady is living under the protection of Duke Baily or Duke Humphy? Are those--is one of them, we mean--protecting her from Mrs. Peter Dudbury? Honour to his Grace, whichever he is, if he acts up to his description! With the nobler sex the reverse is the case. Whether deserting or deserted, he is rather looked up to by his more securely anchored male friends as the subject of a wider and more illuminating experience than their own. Of course, the forsaken example does not shine with the radiance of a self-supporting inconstancy. It may be that he comes off best in the end, if he is a man of spirit, and finds consolation elsewhere. For then he can not only crow, farmyard-wise, but he has the heartfelt satisfaction of being an ill-used man into the bargain. If he cottons to someone else's ill-used wife, he has nothing left to wish for.