For some time her husband did not seem to realize the position; but gradually his sentences grew rare and curt; he opened his mouth, no longer to let fall the pearls of his wisdom, but to stop it with savory meat; finally this last resource failed, and he sat, looking wrathfully but helplessly on the proceedings at the other end of the table--a lamentable instance of prostrated ecclesiastical dignity. His disgust, however, was far exceeded by the horror of one of the party, a meek, cadaverous-looking boy, whose parents lived in the town, and who was wont to regard the head master as the vicegerent of all powers, civil and sacerdotal--I am not sure he did not include military as well. I caught him looking several times at the door and the ceiling with a pale, guilty face, as if he expected some immediate visitation to punish the sacrilege. However, heaven, which did not interrupt the feast of Atreus or of Tereus (till the dessert), allowed us to finish our dinner in peace. During the interval when we sat alone over his claret, our host revived a little; but utterly relapsed in the drawing-room, where things went on worse than ever. Guy leaned over the fair Penelope (such was her classical and not inappropriate name) while she was singing, and over her sofa afterward, evidently considering himself her legitimate proprietor for the time, and regarding the husband, as he hovered round them, in the light of an unauthorized intruder. The latter would have given any thing, once or twice, to have interfered, I am sure; but, apart from, the extreme ridicule of the thing, he was in his own house, and as hospitable as Saladin. It was a great scene, when, at parting, she gave Guy the camellia that she wore at her breast; the doctor gasped thrice convulsively and said no word; but I wonder how she accounted afterward for the smile and blush which answered some whispered thanks? There are certain limits that even the historian dares not transgress; a veil falls between the profane and the thalamus of an LL.D.; but I rather imagine she had a hard time of it that night, the poor little woman! Let us hope, in charity, that she held her own. When the Count was questioned as to the conversation that had passed, he declined to give any particulars, merely remarking that "he had to thank Dr. ---- for for a very pleasant evening, and he hoped everyone had enjoyed themselves very much"--which was philanthropic, to say the least of it. I don't know if it was our imagination, but we fancied that when the head master called up Livingstone in form after this, he did so with an air of grave defiance, such as a duelist of the Old Regime may have worn when, doffing his plumed hat, he said to his adversary, "_En garde!_" There was little time to make observations, for shortly afterward Guy went up to Oxford, whither, six months later, I followed him. CHAPTER III.