ho transferred the
opprobrium to him. Nevertheless, though their manner of welcoming
misfortune was such, I, knowing that there was not a deadlier animal than
a 'done' Briton, have shudders for Ipley.

We relinquished the stream of an epic in turning away from these mighty
drums.

Mr. Pole stood questioning all who surrounded him: "What could I do? I
couldn't subscribe to both. They don't expect that of a lord, and I'm a
commoner. If these fellows quarrel and split, are we to suffer for it?
They can't agree, and want us to pay double fines. This is how they serve
us."

Mr. Barrett, rather at a loss to account for his excitement, said, that
it must be admitted they had borne the trick played upon them, with
remarkable good humour.

"Yes, but," Mr. Pole fumed, "I don't. They put me in the wrong, between
them. They make me uncomfortable. I've a good mind to withdraw my
subscription to those rascals who came first, and have nothing to do with
any of them. Then, you see, down I go for a niggardly fellow. That's the
reputation I get. Nothing of this in London! you make your money, pay
your rates, and nobody bothers a man."

"You should have done as our darling here did, papa," said Adela. "You
should have hinted something that might be construed a promise or not, as
we please to read it."

"If I promise I perform," returned Mr. Pole.

"Our Hillford people have cause for complaint," Mr. Barrett observed. And
to Emilia: "You will hardly favour one party more than another, will
you?"

"I am for that poor man Jim," said Emilia, "He carried my harp evening
after evening, and would not even take sixpence for the trouble."

"Are you really going to sing there?"

"Didn't you hear? I promised."

"To-night?"

"Yes; certainly."

"Do you know what it is you have promised?"

"To sing."

Adela glided to her sisters near at hand, and these ladies presently
hemmed Emilia in. They had a method of treating matters they did not
countenance, as if nature had never conceived them, and such were the
monstrous issue of diseased imaginations. It was hard for Emilia to hear
that what she designed to do was "utterly out of the question and not to
be for one moment thought of." She reiterated, with the same interpreting
stress, that she had given her promise.

"Do you know, I praised you for putting them off so cleverly," said Adela
in tones of gentle reproach that bewildered Emilia.

"Must we remind you, then, that you are boun