Guarding the weakest."
The applause, in which Miss Templemaine generously joined, was this time quite unconcealed, and Lady Pollacke's sister's last "Touching" had hardly died away when Mrs Monnerie added her approbation.
"Charming, perfectly charming," she murmured, eyeing me like a turtle-dove. "But tell me, my dear, why that particular poem? It seemed to have even less sense than usual."
"No-o; ye-es," breathed Lady Pollacke, and many heads nodded in discreet accord.
"Doesn't—er—perhaps, Mrs Browning dwell rather assiduously on the tragic side of life?" Mr Crimble ventured to inquire.
Lady Pollacke jerked her head, either in the affirmative or in the negative, and looked inquiringly at Mrs Monnerie, who merely drooped her eyes a little closer towards me and smiled, almost as if she and I were in a little plot together.
"What do you say, Miss M.?"
"Well, Mrs Monnerie," I replied a little nervously, for all eyes were turned on me, "I don't think I know myself what exactly the poem means—the who's and what's—and what the blast was which was not wind. But I thought it was a poem which every one would understand as much as possible of."
To judge from the way she quivered in her chair, though quite inaudibly, Mrs Monnerie was extremely amused at this criticism.
"And that is why you chose it?"