A majestic female was Mrs. Purcell, with a haughty eye and a Roman nose. She was as stout as her sister was lean, and was draped with funereal pomp in silk and crape, and ornaments of glistening jet. She moved slowly and spoke slowly, and she modelled her speech on the best traditions of her hero, Dr. Johnson. Her looks were monumental, her conversations ponderous. She resembled the ideal Britannia--without, be it said, helmet or trident--in domestic life. She had flippantly been compared to Gibbon's "Decline and Fall," and, indeed, there was something of the epic about her, awe-inspiring and stately. She had never made or enjoyed a joke in her life. Pallas, Lady Macbeth, Hannah More--Mrs. Purcell was a combination of all three. "Mr. Mallow," she said, bearing down on the visitor with full canvas, "I am glad to welcome you to my temporary hearth. With my sister, as with the vivacious Miss Ostergaard, you are already acquainted. We expect Lord Aldean, but for the time being our circle is limited, as you observe." Mallow greeted the two ladies. "And how is your book getting on?" The authoress sighed. "Only moderately well, Mr. Mallow," she said wearily. "I am at present employed in identifying the Etruscan lituus with the Pontifical crosier, and some of the accounts are so contradictory that it is not easy to reconcile them." "How is Olive?" demanded Tui, irrelevantly. "Is she well and happy?" "Is not that a superfluous question, under the circumstances?" replied Mallow, evasively. Tui looked at him. "Hardly, or I would not have asked it. On the contrary, her letters give me a different impression. I fear from them that she does not get on well with her husband." "Tis difficult," observed Mrs. Purcell, who had returned to the tea-table, "for a newly-married pair to live in complete accord with one another. The effect of their respective trainings has to be taken into account, and only the influence of time, coupled with forbearance on either side, can adapt the idiosyncrasies of one to those of the other. Olive has been reared in our island home, Mr. Carson has not. Therefore it is not unlikely that they experience some difficulty in blending their respective dispositions into one harmonious whole." "East is east, and west is west," said Mallow, "and two parallel straight lines cannot meet." "Let us hope that, in this case, judicious yielding on the part of each of these young people will create an exception to the invariable truth of that axiom, Mr. Mallow. Can I give you a dish of tea?" "Thank you, Mrs. Purcell. Ah, here comes our mutual friend." Aldean entered. He was welcomed by Mrs. Purcell with all the pomp she considered due to a member of the nobility. Tui was joyous. "I thought you were never coming," she said. "I see that it is out 'of sight, out of mind' with you." "By Jove! I wish it were," sighed Jim; "I should be a happier man." "Oh, surely I don't make you miserable?"