dress in London
your advertisement cut from the paper; it was forwarded to me; I wanted
to get away from Liverpool, and it seemed as if this was put in my way
on purpose, by some old friend or other. I answered the advertisement
certainly, but I was not particularly anxious to come here, nor am I
anxious to stay.'

Miss Aldclyffe descended from haughty superiority to womanly persuasion
with a haste which was almost ludicrous. Indeed, the Quos ego of the
whole lecture had been less the genuine menace of the imperious ruler of
Knapwater than an artificial utterance to hide a failing heart.

'Now, now, Mr. Manston, you wrong me; don't suppose I wish to be
overbearing, or anything of the kind; and you will allow me to say this
much, at any rate, that I have become interested in your wife, as well
as in yourself.'

'Certainly, madam,' he said, slowly, like a man feeling his way in the
dark. Manston was utterly at fault now. His previous experience of the
effect of his form and features upon womankind en masse, had taught
him to flatter himself that he could account by the same law of natural
selection for the extraordinary interest Miss Aldclyffe had hitherto
taken in him, as an unmarried man; an interest he did not at all object
to, seeing that it kept him near Cytherea, and enabled him, a man of
no wealth, to rule on the estate as if he were its lawful owner. Like
Curius at his Sabine farm, he had counted it his glory not to possess
gold himself, but to have power over her who did. But at this hint of
the lady's wish to take his wife under her wing also, he was perplexed:
could she have any sinister motive in doing so? But he did not allow
himself to be troubled with these doubts, which only concerned his
wife's happiness.

'She tells me,' continued Miss Aldclyffe, 'how utterly alone in
the world she stands, and that is an additional reason why I should
sympathize with her. Instead, then, of requesting the favour of your
retirement from the post, and dismissing your interests altogether, I
will retain you as my steward still, on condition that you bring home
your wife, and live with her respectably, in short, as if you loved her;
you understand. I _wish_ you to stay here if you grant that everything
shall flow smoothly between yourself and her.'

The breast and shoulders of the steward rose, as if an expression
of defiance was about to be poured forth; before it took form, he
controlled himself and said, in his natur