Page:The Semi-attached Couple.djvu/181

 "It never could be dull; but whether it ever would be a wise measure, is more than I can say." His looks were intended to explain his oracular words, but Helen was too innocent to understand them. She had yet to learn that the first moment in which a woman lets it appear that she and her husband are at variance is the last in which she is safe from the impertinent admiration of others; and Colonel Stuart's looks and words were alike thrown away. Her mind was full of her own unparalleled griefs and wrongs. She was not sure she had been right in saying what she knew would vex Lord Teviot; but she felt rather the better for it too, and she was enabled to get through the remaining time at dinner without bursting into tears.

The conversation, in defiance of Mr. G.'s attempts to give it another turn, would revert to Lisbon. Fisherwick shrugged and signalled and whispered to La Grange, "I wish they would be a little more prudent before the servants. I see he is quite distressed. The Opposition papers will get hold of Lord Teviot's appointment before we gazette him, and there will be the deuce to pay with them."

"Are the journals so much dear to pay?" said La Grange, who hoped he had opened a new vein of information. Do you pay them yourself?"

"Pay them!" repeated Fisherwick. "My dear sir, do you really suppose we should deign to buy off any of those vile, libellous publications? What do we care for them? The papers that have any circulation are not to be bought, and as for the Opposition trash, it is not worth buying."

"I admire your papers beyond all that I see in England. We think much in our country of your liberty of the Press; but it far pass my hopes. It is the greatest of benefits to a stranger: it let him at once into secrets of society. You can tell to me, Fisherwick, if it be true what they do say, that Mr. G. have made these changes in