She spoke with the air of one gently railing at her own distress, but shivered a little to prove the distress genuine, and Kelly, as he looked at her, felt a sudden pang of pity.
'Your place, my lady, is not here,' he cried, 'but in the Mall, at the Spring Gardens, in the lighted theatres, when even your ladyship's own sex would pay you homage for outrivalling them.'
'Nay,' she replied, with the sweetest smile of reproof, 'you go too fast, Mr. Johnson. My place is here, for here my duty lies.' She looked up to the ceiling with a meek acceptance of the burden laid upon her fair shoulders. 'But I am not come to disturb you,' she continued briskly; 'I came to fetch a book to read aloud to my lord.' At that a sigh half broke from her and was caught back as it were upon her lips. 'Perhaps, Mr. Johnson,' she said in a well-acted flurry, 'you will help me in the selection?'
'With all the heart in the world,' said he, laying down his volume. The choice took perhaps longer than need have been, for over each book there was some discussion. This one was too trivial to satisfy my Lord Oxford's weighty mind; that other was too profound to suit his health. 'And nothing too contentious, I implore you, lest it throw him into a heat,' she prayed, 'for my lord has a great gift of logic, and will argue with you by the hour over the merest trifle.' This with another half-uttered sigh, and so the martyr sought her lord's bedside. It appeared, however, that Lord Oxford was sleepy that night, or had no mind for the music of his lady's voice, for in a very little while she returned to the library and Mr. Kelly, where Wogan presently found them discussing in a great animation the prospects of Mr. Law's ventures.
'You are in for a great stake?' she asked.
'For all I have,' replied Kelly, 'and a little more. It is not a great sum.'
'But may become one,' said she, 'and will if a friend's good wishes can at all avail.' And so she wished her guests good night.
The next morning Lord Oxford sent a message that he was so far recovered as would enable him to receive his visitors that afternoon. Meanwhile Lady Oxford, after breakfast carried off the two gentlemen to visit a new orchard she was having planted. The orchard was open to the south-west, and Kelly took objection to its site, quoting Virgil in favour of a westerly outlook.
'Ah, but the west wind,' she said, 'comes to us across the Welsh mountains, which even in the late spring are at times covered deep in snow. However, I should be pleased to hear the advice of Virgil,' and the Parson goes off to the library and fetches out a copy.
It was a warm day in April, with the sky blue overhead and the buds putting out on the trees, and for the most part of that morning Mr. Kelly translated the Georgics to her ladyship, on a seat under a great yew-tree, in a little square of grass fenced off with a hedge. She listened with an extraordinary complaisance, and now and then a compliment upon the Parson's fluency; so that Mr. Wogan lost all his apprehensions as to her meddling in the King's affairs. For, to his thinking, than listening to Virgil, there was no greater proof of friendship.