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468 468 THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. it hard to pretend to eat her dinner. There was a certain relief, presently, in hearing the high, bright voice of her sister-in-law. The Countess, too, apparently, had been thinking the thing out ; but she had arrived at a different conclusion from Isabel. " It is very absurd, my dear Osmond," she said, " to invent so many pretty reasons for poor Pansy's banishment. Why don't you say at once that you want to get her out of my way 1 Haven't you discovered that I think very well of Mr. Eosier 1 I do indeed ; he seems to me a delightful young man. He has made me believe in true love ; I never did before ! Of course you have made up your mind that with those convictions I am dreadful company for Pansy." Osmond took a sip of a glass of wine ; he looked perfectly good-humoured. " My dear Amy," he answered, smiling as if he were uttering a piece of gallantry, " I don't know anything about your convic- tions, but if I suspected that they interfere with mine it would be much simpler to banish you." LI. THE Countess was not banished, but she felt the insecurity of her tenure of her brother's hospitality. A week after this incident Isabel received a telegram from England, dated from Gardencourt, and bearing the stamp of Mrs. Touchett's author- ship. " Ralph cannot last many days," it ran, " and if conveni- ent would like to see you. Wishes me to say that you must come only if you have not other duties. Say, for myself, that you used to talk a good deal about your duty and to wonder what it was ; shall be curious to see whether you have found it out. Ralph is dying, and there is no other company." Isabel was prepared for this news, having received from Henrietta Stackpole a detailed account of her journey to England with her appreciative patient. Ralph had arrived more dead than alive, but she had managed to convey him to Gardencourt, where he had taken to his bed, which, as Miss Stackpole wrote, he evidently would never leave again. " I like him much better sick than when he used to be well," 'said Henrietta, who, it will be remembered, had taken a few years before a sceptical view of Ralph's disabilities. She added that she had really had two patients on her hands instead of one, for that Mr. Goodwood, wht ad been of no earthly use, was quite as sick, in a different