n't really expect it of me. Indeed, I don't think
she quite knows what she wants, or whether she likes me to be here or
at Bridgefield! My belief is that he bullies her less when I am out of
the way, because she just gives way to him, and does not assert any
principle. I've tried to back her up, and it is of no use, and I am
sure I don't want such a winter as the last. So I am much better here;
and as to begging pardon, when I have done nothing wrong, I am sure I
won't, to please anybody. I shall tell her that she ought to know me
better than to expect it!'

But Nuttie did not show the letter either to Aunt Ursel or Mary Nugent;
nor did she see that in which Alice had satisfied them that it might be
better that her daughter should pay them a long visit, while Mr.
Egremont's health required constant attendance, and the Canon's family
were at Redcastle. And as her husband was always open-handed, she
could make Ursula's stay with them advantageous to their slender means,
without hurting their feelings.

She told them as much as she could, but there was more that no living
creature might know, namely, the advantage that Gregorio had gained
over that battlefield, his master, during her days of illness. The
first cold weather had brought on pain, and anger and anxiety, nervous
excitement and sleeplessness, which the valet had taken upon him to
calm with a narcotic under a new name that at first deceived her till
she traced its effects, and inquired of Dr. Hammond about it.
Unwillingly, on her account, he enlightened her, and showed her that,
though the last year's care had done much to loosen the bonds of the
subtle and alluring habit, yet that any resumption of it tended to
plunge its victim into the fatal condition of the confirmed
opium-eater, giving her every hope at the same time that this
propensity might be entirely shaken off, and that the improvement in
Mr. Egremont's health and habits which had set in might be confirmed,
and raise him above the inclination.

Could she have been rid of Gregorio, she would have felt almost sure of
victory; but as it was, she believed the man absolutely meant to baffle
her, partly out of a spiteful rivalry, partly because his master's
torpid indolence could be used to his own advantage. She was
absolutely certain that his sneering tone of remark made her husband
doubly disinclined to let any religious book be near, or to permit her
to draw him to any Sunday observance.

Th