“By no means, my Lady; they are yours, if you will honour me by accepting them. If the subject did not forbid the epithet, I should call them trifles.”
“Monsignore insists on my reading the 'Controversy,' dear Lady Grace; but how I am to continue my studies without his guidance———”
“We can correspond, my Lady,” quickly broke in the other. “You can state to me whatever doubts—difficulties, perhaps, were, the better word—occur to you; I shall be but too happy and too proud to offer you the solution; and if my Lady Grace Twining would condescend to accept me in the same capacity—.”
She bowed blandly, and he went on.
“There is a little tract here, by the Cardinal Balbi—'Flowers of St. Joseph' is the title. The style is simple but touching—'the invitation' scarcely to be resisted.”
“I think you told me I should like the Cardinal personally,” broke in Lady Lackington.
“His Eminence is charming, my Lady—such goodness, such gentleness, and so much of the very highest order of conversational agreeability.”
“Monsignore is so polite as to promise us introductions at Rome,” continued she, addressing Lady Grace, “and amongst those, too, who are never approached by our countrymen.”
“The Alterini, the Fornisari, the Balbetti,” proudly repeated Monsignore.
“All ultra-exclusives, you understand,” whispered Lady Lacking-ton to her friend, “who wouldn't tolerate the English.”