nveyed to Mrs. Chump the
counter-remarks of the ladies, she provoked utterances that almost killed
her. A sadder life is not to be imagined. The perpetual irritation of a
desire to indulge in her mortal weakness, and listening to the sleepless
conscience that kept watch over it; her certainty that it would be better
for her to laugh right out, and yet her incapacity to contest the justice
of her nieces' rebuke; her struggle to resist Mrs. Chump, which ended in
a sensation of secret shameful liking for her--all these warring
influences within were seen in her behaviour.

"I have always said," observed Cornelia, "that she labours under a
disease." What is more, she had always told Mrs. Lupin as much, and her
sisters had echoed her. Three to one in such a case is a severe trial to
the reason of solitary one. And Mrs. Lupin's case was peculiar, inasmuch
as the more she yielded to Chump-temptation and eased her heart of its
load of laughter, the more her heart cried out against her and subscribed
to the scorn of her nieces. Mrs. Chump acted a demon's part; she thirsted
for Mrs. Lupin that she might worry her. Hitherto she had not known that
anything peculiar lodged in her tongue, and with no other person did she
think of using it to produce a desired effect; but now the scenes in
Brookfield became hideous to the ladies, and not wanting in their trials
to the facial muscles of the gentlemen. A significant sign of what the
ladies were enduring was, that they ceased to speak of it in their
consultations. It is a blank period in the career of young creatures when
a fretting wretchedness forces them out of their dreams to action; and it
is then that they will do things that, seen from the outside (i.e. in the
conduct of others), they would hold to be monstrous, all but impossible.
Or how could Cornelia persuade herself, as she certainly persuaded Sir
Twickenham and the world about her, that she had a contemplative pleasure
in his society? Arabella drew nearer to Edward Buxley, whom she had not
treated well, and who, as she might have guessed, had turned his thoughts
toward Adela; though clearly without encouragement. Adela indeed said
openly to her sisters, with a Gallic ejaculation, "Edward follows me, do
you know; and he has adopted a sort of Sicilian-vespers look whenever he
meets me with Captain Gambier. I could forgive him if he would draw out a
dagger and be quite theatrical; but, behold, we meet, and my bourgeois
grunts and