Page:Romance & Reality 2.pdf/289

Rh in their centre—a large cashmere shawl, with its border of roses, thrown carelessly on a chair—a crimson cushion, where lay sleeping a Blenheim dog, almost small enough to have passed through the royal ring in that most fairy tale of the White Cat:—all bespoke a lady's room. Looking the very being for the atmosphere of palaces, sat its beautiful mistress by the small breakfast-table, and with a smile that did not always of a morning grace her exquisite face—and yet she was only tête-à-tête with her husband—which smile, however, would have been easily understood by any one who had heard the conversation between Lady Lauriston and her daughter the night before. It ended with, "as if Algernon could refuse me any thing. His brother's influence greater than mine! You shall see, mamma. He wants so much to go back to that stupid old Castle, that one word of our leaving town, and I may make my own conditions." "Be cautious, my dear love! Men do not like to be interfered with, even by a wife, in politics!" "Politics! as if it were to me other than matter of affection. It is all for the sake of our dear Alfred."