"_Caciata del core fuge nel volto_,"--and, instantly seizing on Charlotte's hand, she said, "My love, I want you and Fanny to run home and send the little car to me. I am a wee bit tired; I will keep Mr. Oliphant and Arthur here, till Paddy and poney arrive." Like lightning, the nymph disappeared, and, quietly turning to me as if our dialogue had suffered no interruption, "I am so glad that just as we wanted Mr. Oliphant, he has come to our aid," said my aunt. "He will be quite at home in answering your last question." She then in a moment playfully informed Domine of our single combat, "which," added she "was fairly fought, and rather favourably to my side at the close, till Arthur rallying his forces, to make a powerful stand, entrenched himself under an authority to which, were it against me, I should implicitly submit; but I will now place _you_ in my stead; and, as I am sure that Arthur was _going_ to say (no _young_ ladies being present) that female inferiority is supported by that volume, from which there is no appeal at Glenalta, I am not without hope that you will drive my nephew from this last fastness." "I accept the challenge," said Oliphant, "and thank you for the post which you allot to me, as the laurel of victory already circles round my brow; but I must hear my adversary state his case." Thus forced into a tilting match with the tutor, I laughed, and assured him that I had never presumed upon encountering so formidable an enemy; but as it would be a tacit confession that my cause was weak, were I to remain silent, "I must own," said I, "that Mrs. Douglas precisely hit upon what I was going to urge, namely, that however modern manners, to which my aunt discovers so little gratitude, have _raised_ women to the pedestal on which they stand, the Bible tells a different tale; and were it even true that female pride had got a fall through fashion's fiat, would not such depreciation be exact conformity with holy writ?" "Were it so," answered the _giant_ of learning, "Mrs. Douglas would neither lament nor contend against her fate, but the Bible is peculiarly her sanctuary of refuge, from which, when driven to its sacred shelter by the taunts of the world, she might proudly exclaim, 'it was not thus, when we came from the hands of God.'"