She had risen, and whirled herself away to the other end of the room, where she busied herself in setting two young ladies to screech duets, while she conversed (seriously or otherwise) with the clergyman. Sebastian turned with a half-smile to Miss Mereweather. He found an unaccountable pleasure in goading Helena into a passion. He had a dim, vague idea that if he tried, he could not only irritate her into fury, but soothe her back into calmness; but he was quite sure he never would try. Rages, he thought, were not in his line. He liked better, as a permanency, the perfect temper and calm self-possession of another character. No one would want to tease Adrienne. His mind half given to such thoughts, he conversed with Miss Mereweather, and his opinion of Helena’s discrimination was gradually raised. Miss Mereweather was not at all bitter about her defeat--if defeat it were. She was clever, sensible, accomplished. She owned that she did think a great deal about the advancement of women and their improvement, and she was an ardent advocate for giving them the franchise; but, she added, she could not go to the lengths Helena did, and very soon they left that subject and turned to others. Their conversation was perfectly amicable and agreeable, and Helena watched them from afar, with a darkling, somewhat resentful glance. Dear Laura’s one fault, she thought, was that she was too facile--that she compromised too easily. As the Mallorys drove home, Mrs. Mallory, completely deceived by the long conversation which had taken place, was in a disastrously, unsuspiciously amiable frame of mind, and was correspondingly dejected when Sebastian, summing up his description of the evening’s entertainment, said that Miss Spenceley had adopted the strictly feminine line of argument, ‘Agree with all I say, or I will quarrel with you!’ ‘As I did not agree with all she said, she quarrelled with me. _Violà tout!_ Did she talk women’s rights to you, Hugo?’ ‘To me--no!’ ‘Why _I_ should be selected as the victim, I can’t imagine,’ pursued Sebastian. ‘It is a pity she does it, for she could be nice, I am sure; and as it is, she makes herself simply a bore.’ Mrs. Mallory was silent, mentally heaping opprobrium upon Helena’s crazes. FOOTNOTES: [2] An apology is herewith offered to the Manchester Central Committee, for thus putting into the mouth of a fictitious individual their excellent proposals for the schools which were of so much benefit in most of the distressed districts. BOOK II. THE STORM. [Illustration] CHAPTER I. THE FIRST OF THE STORM The year 1861 had closed in thick clouds and a great darkness, with the mutter of war in the far west, and with the threatening of famine at home. The year 1862 dawned, but with a dawn so dark as scarce to be distinguishable from profoundest midnight. ‘Earth turned in her sleep for pain.’