Therefore his mood, notwithstanding his courteous entrance, was none of the most amiable when he paid this morning visit to her ladyship; therefore the tone in which he couched it was little calculated to sweeten the unpalatable communication he had to make. "Zounds! madam," said his lordship, "you will the more readily hear what I have to say." "Sure you need not swear," she replied, with frigid dignity. "No gentleman swears so early in the day." He laughed, and continued more good-humouredly, "Your ladyship is very happy in town, are you not?" "Your lordship must be a fool to ask such a question," she returned sharply. "If you neglected me less, you would know that in my position, and with my health, it is ridiculous to talk of being happy anywhere!" "And yet you look charmingly," continued her husband, scanning his own handsome person in the glass. "Compared to faces which your lordship is in the habit of studying, mine is perhaps tolerably well-favoured," said she; "but nothing is so deceptive as one's appearance, and the air of this town is simply killing me by inches." "Then it shall do murder no longer," he answered kindly; "I must leave for the West this very afternoon. My coach is waiting at the door to take me to the minister's. There is not a moment to be lost. It is the king's business; I suppose I ought to say, God bless him!" "Well?" she asked coldly, "what concern is that of mine?" "Will you not come with me?" was his reply. "We have been living separate lives too long. Perhaps each of us is better than the other thinks. Let us give it a trial and see if we cannot be happy together for a few weeks. We have been very uncomfortable apart for a good many years." The tears were rising to her eyes. A kind word or a caress might have turned the balance even now; but it was his lordship's habit to assume carelessness of manner at the moment he was most interested, and instead of putting his arm round her waist, he busied himself adjusting cravat and ruffles in the glass. She felt and showed she was annoyed. "I cannot leave town," she objected, "at a moment's notice. I wonder you can ask such a thing." He looked in her face disappointed, and perhaps a little hurt. "My lady," said he, "you're a puzzle!" "My lord," said she, "you're a brute!" CHAPTER VII. READY AND WILLING. They left town together notwithstanding; and although my lady altered her mind with every mile, now extolling her own sense of wifely duty, now bewailing her want of firmness and consistency, yet by the time she arrived at Hounslow, where they were to sleep, she had become reconciled to the society of her husband and her enforced journey to the West. Such impressionable natures, from which emotion so easily passes away, enjoy at least this advantage--that one swallow makes for them an immediate summer, one glimpse of sunshine absorbs the memory of a month of storms.