‘Treat a woman frankly,’ quoth Lovelace, in his treatise on this difficult topic, ‘and, strange as it may at first sight appear, like a rational creature. This course is sure to produce a misunderstanding; but remember the sooner there is a trial of strength the better. Afterwards, if you cannot preserve a _bonâ fide_ and complete indifference, take care to absent yourself from the subject under treatment. It is indispensable never to appear at a disadvantage. If elsewhere, the subject, whose imagination is vivid, will picture you as more pleasingly employed than in its society. This rouses emulation and stimulates self-esteem, of both which qualities it possesses a large share. When it is satisfied you can do perfectly well without it; if it has the slightest inclination to be tamed, it will come to the hand of its own accord; if it has not, all your pains are but labour thrown away, and only render you less fitted to cope with such other subjects of the species as it may seem desirable to reduce to obedience. Always remember this, that the men whom women love best are those over whom they have the least influence, and of whom they stand somewhat in awe.’ Is Lovelace right? We have quoted from memory, but such is the gist of his theory, the truth of which our own observations of such matters would lead us to concede; the difficulty seems to be in reducing it to practice. The generous nature is more willing to give than to receive, and takes all the shame and all the suffering ungrudgingly on its own shoulders. ‘Malo cum Platone errare.’ It may be better to fail thus, than to triumph with Lovelace. Walter Maxwell was proud, lonely, and unhappy. It was under these circumstances that Master Randolph bade him to dinner in his lodging at twelve o’clock noon, and studiously avoided asking any other guest to meet him. The refined taste of the Englishman had gathered about him even in the northern capital every luxury of which the age admitted. Good living and diplomacy have ever gone together, from the roast mutton consumed in council before Troy to the Nesselrode puddings of to-day. Honest Jenkin, an invaluable domestic, received his master’s guest with a grin of recognition. He had not forgotten their night skirmish on the Border some two years ago, and after the manner of his kind had assumed a vested interest in Maxwell for the rest of his life. ‘Master Randolph was in his closet concluding a despatch,’ he said, placing a seat for the visitor in the chimney-corner. ‘The soup would be on the table in five minutes; would Master Maxwell divert himself in the meantime with examining these silver-mounted dags? They were pretty pistolets enough. We would have been none the worse of them that moonlight night in the “Debatable Land.”’ Maxwell smiled, and whilst Jenkin bustled to and fro about his hospitable labours, warmed himself at the wood fire and took a survey of the ambassador’s apartment.