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BY ORDER OF THE CZAR. 153

" We have always been equal to either fortune/' Dick would say in confidential moments, when discussing the difficulties of the London battle ; " we could have lived in a garret at any time, and got as much happiness out of it as if it had been a palace ; and that is the only way for a man and woman to fight the battle of London together."

u We are dining in Dick's room to-night," said buxom Mrs. Chetwynd, " because we have a reception, and I want the lower rooms of the house free, and, morever, I like to give the servants every chance to keep their heads, and we do not have any assistance on these occasions, Mr. For- syth. Dick does not believe in hired waiters and manu- factured food."

She always quoted Dick as if she consulted him on everything, which she did not. But she was always anxious to have it understood that Dick was at the head of affairs as much in Dorset-square as at the Gallery, or at his editorial office in Fleet Street. She was a rosy, pleasant, frank hostess, Mrs. Chetwynd. Hawthorne, who spoke of English women as beefy, would probably have noted in her an absence of what might be termed the dainty spirituelle side of the feminine character which is very attractive to some men } but she was a type of that English womanhood which has given to the English char- acter, in all ages, its energy, its muscle, its open fearless features, and its national dignity. She was the picture of a refined Rubens. She had the rounded limbs, but they were firm and shapely ; she had the blonde face, but it was neither fat nor thin ; the fair hair ; but she had the mouth and eyes of an intellectual as well as a beautiful English woman ; and Dick's friends noticed that she con- tinually grew more'and more like her husband, the result of perfect unity of sympathy and a sincere and abiding love.

" The moment she came into the Gallery to-day," said