Page:Lady Barbarity; a romance (IA ladybarbarityrom00snai).pdf/86

 the only sufferer. Pah! 'twas only a piece of mischief, and my maid Emblem will tell you quite the same, and she should know, for she put my cloak on and saw me down the stairs. Why, if it comes to argument, my lord, the King, nor you, nor politics, nor precious Captain Grantley hath a leg to stand on, and 'tis argument they say that is the only thing that is considered in a court of justice. Come, tell me is it not so, Mr. Custos Rutulorum?"

"Faith, that is so!" laughed his lordship, heartily, and he hath been on four occasions High Sheriff of the County; "and if they shall find a lawyer who may prevail against this argument of yours, my delightful criminal, it will have to be a woman, a second Portia let us say, for the man hath not been fashioned yet who could possibly chop logic with you; nay, if it comes to that," and my papa stood up and bowed to the bright buckles of his shoes in the most flattering fashion, "the combined genius of our sex could never hope to overcome in argument the dialectics of you fair, unfathomable, amazing ladies."

Yet despite his smiling speeches the hard*-wrought look still sat in his eyes. Then I grew Tower-haunted. Could it be possible that my frolic had so greatly shocked old, indignant, sober-sided Politics? But if any proof were needed to the Earl's assertion that my night's work was criminal, it was at my elbow. On the table I saw a sheet of the official blue with a brief statement of the prisoner's escape upon it. It was a rather garbled version,