“I think so, too,” said a small and delicate person who was seated in a deep low chair upon the other side of the fire. She was not old like Lady Betsinda. She was a fragile little pale woman approaching fifty, the wife of an eminent lawyer, and a little leader of society in her way. She wrote a little, and drew a little, and sung a little, and was a great patroness of artists, to whom, it need not be said, Mrs. Berry-Montagu was very superior, gracious to them as a queen to her courtiers; while young painters, and young writers, and young actors were very obsequious to her, as to a woman who could, their elders told them, “make their fortunes.” And there was more truth than usual in this, for though Mrs. Berry-Montagu could not make anybody’s fortune she could do something to mar it, and very frequently exercised that less amiable power, writing pretty little _critiques_ which made the young people wince, and damning their best efforts with elegant depreciation. These were two of the friends who took Lady Randolph’s moral character and social actions under their control. Most women, especially those who are widows, have a superintending tribunal of this description, before which all their actions are judged; and nowhere does the true dignity of the woman who is married come out with more imposing force than in such circumstances. Lady Betsinda was vehement; she was old and the daughter of a duke, and had a very good right to say what she pleased, and keep the rest of the world in order. But Mrs. Berry-Montagu was, so to speak, two people. Her views were enlarged, as everybody acknowledged tacitly by her possession of that larger shadow of a husband behind her, and she had a great, unexpressed contempt for all women who were without that dual dignity. A smile of the softest disdain--nay, the word is too strong, and so is derision also much too potent for the delicate subdued amusement with which she contemplated the doings of the _femme sole_ of all classes--hovered about her lips. This did not spring from any special devotion on her part to her husband, or faith in him, but only from her consciousness of her own good fortune and dignity, and the high position she occupied in consequence of his existence. We have given too much space to the description of Lady Randolph’s privy council. Has not every solitary woman in society a governing body which is much, the same? “I think so, too,” Mrs. Berry-Montagu said; “you ought really to think of yourself a little; self-renunciation is a beautiful virtue; but then we are not called upon to exercise it for everybody, and a girl of this description is fair game.” “If I were a hunter,” said Lady Randolph.