Page:Tales of John Oliver Hobbes.djvu/379

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EPILOGUE.

When Lady Jane Shannon attained her one-and- twentieth year she married the brilliant young scholar De Boys Mauden who, at present, is editing Plato as he has never been edited before, and never will be, again. As this magnificent enterprise will occupy some nine hours each day for the next thirty years of his life, we may safely assume that much fame will accrue to his literary executors.

The Earl of Warbeck astonished society by becoming first a Roman Catholic, and then a priest. This did not kill his grandmother, as many people feared it might, but she lived many years to enjoy the pleasure of writing wills in his favour, and revoking them at the rate of three a month. He also dined with her frequently, because, as she told her friends, she would never despair of converting him back to Christianity and the usual number of commandments.

Farmer Battle and Miss Caroline Battle are still living, and rank next in Jane's heart after De Boys and a certain small edition of De Boys. This young gentleman already holds a decided opinion on the due subjection of women to their lords: an opinion which

Jane has her own method of refuting—a method so subtle, however, that Mauden has never yet been able to perceive it. He is only conscious that his wife's will looks so much like his own, that he is never able to tell which is which. He, at all events, gives the

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