mily, that makes you like this?"

"He shouldn't have had the people."

"Well;--granted. But it does not signify much. Is your aunt Harriet
there?"

"Yes."

"It can't be very bad, then."

"Mrs. Leslie is there, and Lady Eustace,--and two men I don't like."

"Is Everett here?"

"No;--he wouldn't have Everett."

"Oughtn't you to go to them?"

"Don't make me go. I should only cry. I have been crying all day, and
the whole of yesterday." Then she buried her face upon his knees, and
sobbed as though she would break her heart.

He couldn't at all understand it. Though he distrusted his
son-in-law, and certainly did not love him, he had not as yet learned
to hold him in aversion. When the connection was once made he had
determined to make the best of it, and had declared to himself that
as far as manners went the man was well enough. He had not as yet
seen the inside of the man, as it had been the sad fate of the poor
wife to see him. It had never occurred to him that his daughter's
love had failed her, or that she could already be repenting what she
had done. And now, when she was weeping at his feet and deploring the
sin of the dinner-party,--which, after all, was a trifling sin,--he
could not comprehend the feelings which were actuating her. "I
suppose your aunt Harriet made up the party," he said.

"He did it."

"Your husband?"

"Yes;--he did it. He wrote to the women in my name when I refused."
Then Mr. Wharton began to perceive that there had been a quarrel. "I
told him Mrs. Leslie oughtn't to come here."

"I don't love Mrs. Leslie,--nor, for the matter of that, Lady
Eustace. But they won't hurt the house, my dear."

"And he has had the dinner sent in from a shop."

"Why couldn't he let Mrs. Williams do it?" As he said this, the tone
of his voice became for the first time angry.

"Cook has gone away. She wouldn't stand it. And Mrs. Williams is very
angry. And Barker wouldn't wait at table."

"What's the meaning of it all?"

"He would have it so. Oh, papa, you don't know what I've undergone.
I wish,--I wish we had not come here. It would have been better
anywhere else."

"What would have been better, dear?"

"Everything. Whether we lived or died, it would have been better. Why
should I bring my misery to you? Oh, papa, you do not know,--you can
never know."

"But I must know. Is there more than this dinner to disturb you?"

"Oh, yes;--more than that. Only I couldn't bear that it should be
d