ty prompted the inexplicable invitation, and the
form of it.

After Mr. Barrett had departed, the ladies ventured to remonstrate with
their papa. He at once replied by asking whether the letter to Mrs. Chump
had been written; and hearing that it had not, he desired that Arabella
should go into the house and compose it straightway. The ladies coloured.
To Adela's astonishment, she found that Arabella had turned. Joining her,
she said, "Dearest, what a moment you have lost! We could have stood
firm, continually changing the theme from Chump to Barrett, Barrett to
Chump, till papa's head would have twirled. He would have begun to think
Mr. Barrett the Irish widow, and Mrs. Chump the organist."

Arabella rejoined: "Your wit misleads you, darling. I know what I am
about. I decline a wordy contest. To approach to a quarrel, or, say
dispute, with one's parent apropos of such a person, is something worse
than evil policy, don't you think?"

So strongly did the sisters admire this delicate way of masking a piece
of rank cowardice, that they forgave her. The craven feeling was common
to them all, which made it still more difficult to forgive her.

"Of course, we resist?" said Cornelia.

"Undoubtedly."

"We retire and retire," Adela remarked. "We waste the royal forces. But,
dear me, that makes us insurgents!"

She laughed, being slightly frivolous. Her elders had the proper
sentimental worship of youth and its supposed quality of innocence, and
caressed her.

At the ringing of the second dinner-bell, Mr. Pole ran to the foot of the
stairs and shouted for Arabella, who returned no answer, and was late in
her appearance at table. Grace concluded, Mr. Pole said, "Letter gone? I
wanted to see it, you know."

"It was as well not, papa," Arabella replied.

Mr. Pole shook his head seriously. The ladies were thankful for the
presence of Mr. Barrett. And lo! this man was in perfect evening uniform.
He looked as gentlemanly a visitor as one might wish to see. There was no
trace of the poor organist. Poverty seemed rather a gold-edge to his
tail-coat than a rebuke to it; just as, contrariwise, great wealth is, to
the imagination, really set off by a careless costume. One need not
explain how the mind acts in such cases: the fact, as I have put it, is
indisputable. And let the young men of our generation mark the present
chapter, that they may know the virtue residing in a tail-coat, and cling
to it, whether buffeted by the waves