ing as much company as she can
without too much expense, but loving no one and beloved by none--a
cold-hearted, supercilious, keenly, insidiously censorious old maid.

CHAPTER XLIX

Though Mr. Lawrence's health was now quite re-established, my visits to
Woodford were as unremitting as ever; though often less protracted than
before. We seldom talked about Mrs. Huntingdon; but yet we never met
without mentioning her, for I never sought his company but with the hope
of hearing something about her, and he never sought mine at all, because
he saw me often enough without. But I always began to talk of other
things, and waited first to see if he would introduce the subject. If he
did not, I would casually ask, 'Have you heard from your sister lately?'
If he said 'No,' the matter was dropped: if he said 'Yes,' I would
venture to inquire, 'How is she?' but never 'How is her husband?' though
I might be burning to know; because I had not the hypocrisy to profess
any anxiety for his recovery, and I had not the face to express any
desire for a contrary result. Had I any such desire?--I fear I must
plead guilty; but since you have heard my confession, you must hear my
justification as well --a few of the excuses, at least, wherewith I
sought to pacify my own accusing conscience.

In the first place, you see, his life did harm to others, and evidently
no good to himself; and though I wished it to terminate, I would not have
hastened its close if, by the lifting of a finger, I could have done so,
or if a spirit had whispered in my ear that a single effort of the will
would be enough,--unless, indeed, I had the power to exchange him for
some other victim of the grave, whose life might be of service to his
race, and whose death would be lamented by his friends. But was there
any harm in wishing that, among the many thousands whose souls would
certainly be required of them before the year was over, this wretched
mortal might be one? I thought not; and therefore I wished with all my
heart that it might please heaven to remove him to a better world, or if
that might not be, still to take him out of this; for if he were unfit to
answer the summons now, after a warning sickness, and with such an angel
by his side, it seemed but too certain that he never would be--that, on
the contrary, returning health would bring returning lust and villainy,
and as he grew more certain of recovery, more accustomed to her generous
goodness, hi