The phonetic system was despatched
by the way. Then came Champollion; then Paris; then all its
celebrities, literary and especially scientific; then came the
letter from Arago received that morning; and the letter from
Dr Buckland expected to-morrow. She was delighted that one
had written; wondered why the other had not. Finally before
the ladies had retired, she had invited Egremont to join Lady
Marney in a visit to her observatory, where they were to
behold a comet which she had been the first to detect.
Lady Firebrace next to the duke indulged in mysterious fiddle-
fadde as to the state of parties. She too had her
correspondents, and her letters received or awaited. Tadpole
said this; Lord Masque, on the contrary, said that: the truth
lay perhaps between them; some result developed by the clear
intelligence of Lady Firebrace acting on the data with which
they supplied her. The duke listened with calm excitement to
the transcendental revelations of his Egeria. Nothing
appeared to be concealed from her; the inmost mind of the
sovereign: there was not a royal prejudice that was not mapped
in her secret inventory; the cabinets of the whigs and the
clubs of the tories, she had the "open sesame" to all of them.
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