gods of her taste and false notes of her talk, the
sole contemplation of which would be dangerously
misleading. She was a complex and subtle Britan
nia, as passionate as she was practical, with a reti
cule for her prejudices as deep as that other pocket,
the pocket full of coins stamped in her image, that
the world best knew her by. She carried on, in
short, behind her aggressive and defensive front,
operations determined by her wisdom. It was in
fact, we have hinted, as a besieger that our young
lady, in the provisioned citadel, had for the present
most to think of her, and what made her formidable
in this character was that she was unscrupulous and
immoral. So, at all events, in silent sessions and
a youthful off-hand way, Kate conveniently pictured
her: what this sufficiently represented being that
her weight was in the scale of certain dangers
those dangers that, by our showing, made the
younger woman linger and lurk above, while the
elder, below, both militant and diplomatic, covered
as much of the ground as possible. Yet what were
the dangers, after all, but just the dangers of life
and of London? Mrs. Lowder was London, was
life the roar of the siege and the thick of the fray.
There were some things, after all, of which Britan
nia was afraid; but Aunt Maud was afraid of noth
ing not even, it would appear, of arduous thought.
These impressions, none the less, Kate kept so
much to herself that she scarce shared them with
poor Marian, the ostensible purpose of her fre-

[[35]]

p034 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p035w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p036

v?