displease my maternal vanity, but
it did; I had really rather she squinted; and when there was anything to
look at I kept out of the way. I can not tell precisely, therefore, what
the incidents were that contributed to make Mr. Tottenham, on our return
from these expeditions, so thoughtful, with a thoughtfulness which
increased, towards the end of them, to a positive gravity. This would
disappear during dinner under the influence of food and drink. He
would talk nightly with new enthusiasm and fresh hope--or did I imagine
it?--of the loveliness he had arranged to reveal on the following day.
If again my imagination did not lead me astray, I fancied this occurred
later and later in the course of the meal as the week went on; as if
his state required more stimulus as time progressed. One evening, when
I expected it to flag altogether, I had a whim to order champagne and
observe the effect; but I am glad to say that I reproved myself, and
refrained.

Cecily, meanwhile, was conducting herself in a manner which left nothing
to be desired. If, as I sometimes thought, she took Dacres very much for
granted, she took him calmly for granted; she seemed a prey to none of
those fluttering uncertainties, those suspended judgments and elaborate
indifferences which translate themselves so plainly in a young lady
receiving addresses. She turned herself out very freshly and very well;
she was always ready for everything, and I am sure that no glance of
Dacres Tottenham's found aught but direct and decorous response. His
society on these occasions gave her solid pleasure; so did the drive and
the lunch; the satisfactions were apparently upon the same plane. She
was aware of the plum, if I may be permitted a brusque but irresistible
simile; and with her mouth open, her eyes modestly closed, and her head
in a convenient position, she waited, placidly, until it should fall in.
The Farnham ladies would have been delighted with the result of their
labours in the sweet reason and eminent propriety of this attitude.
Thinking of my idiotic sufferings when John began to fix himself upon my
horizon, I pondered profoundly the power of nature in differentiation.

One evening, the last, I think, but one, I had occasion to go to my
daughter's room, and found her writing in her commonplace-book. She had
a commonplace-book, as well as a Where Is It? an engagement-book, an
account-book, a diary, a Daily Sunshine, and others with purposes too
various to