Mrs. Lascelles never doubted her power over any one on whom she chose to exert it, and believed that, like a spider, she need only spin her web in order to surround the desired bluebottle inextricably with its toils. In hers, as in similar cases, I imagine that to break boldly through the meshes was the insect's best chance of turning the tables, and taking the custodian herself into custody. "Miss Ross goes with you?" asked Sir Henry meditatively, though I believe he was thinking less of that black-eyed syren than of his daughter. "Miss Ross goes with me, undoubtedly," was the answer, spoken rather sharply, and in some little displeasure. "Have you any objection? Can't you bear to part with her even for so short a period? You see, I know all about _that_, too." Sir Henry never seemed to have any sense of shame. He couldn't have blushed to save his life. To this callousness he owed many of his successes, and almost all his scrapes. He smiled pleasantly. "You know all about everything, I believe," said he; "and you _think_ you know all about _me_. But you don't, and I don't; and nobody does, I fancy. I'm so different from what I feel sure I was intended to be, that I sometimes suspect, like the Irishman, they 'changed me at nurse.' Only, if I _were_ somebody else, that wouldn't account for it, after all, would it? These are puzzling speculations; but I know I _could_ have been a better and a very different man. It's not my fault." "Whose, then?" she asked, bending her blue eyes on him with an expression of interest extremely dangerous for a man at any age. He scarcely marked it. He was searching out the truth for once from the depths--not very profound--of his world-worn heart, and had forgotten during the moment that false and fleeting woman-worship which had so weakened and deteriorated his nature. Looking back along the path of life on which, as in some idolatrous grove, his every step had been marked by a soulless image of brass, or stucco, or marble, reared only to be defaced and overthrown, he was scarcely conscious of that lovely living companion, listening with all the attention of curiosity and self-interest to his retrospections.