this way, Cornelia took a Plutarch and an Encyclopaedia
under her arm, to return to her room. But one volume fell, and as she
stooped to recover it, her candle shared its fate. She had to find her
way back in the dark. On the landing of the stairs, she fancied that she
heard a step and a breath. The lady was of unshaken nerves. She moved
on steadily, her hand stretched out a little before her. What it touched
was long in travelling to her brain; but when her paralyzed heart beat
again, she knew that her hand clasped another hand. Her nervous horror
calmed as the feeling came to her of the palpable weakness of the hand.

"Who are you?" she asked. Some hoarse answer struck her ear. She asked
again, making her voice distincter. The hand now returned her pressure
with force. She could feel that the person, whoever it was, stood
collecting strength to speak. Then the words came--

"What do you mean by imitating that woman's brogue?"

"Papa!" said Cornelia.

"Why do you talk Irish in the dark? There, goodnight. I've just come up
from the library; my candle dropped. I shouldn't have been frightened,
but you talked with such a twang."

"But I have just come from the library myself," said Cornelia.

"I mean from the dining-room," her father corrected himself hastily. "I
can't sit in the library; shall have it altered--full of draughts. Don't
you think so, my dear? Good-night. What's this in your arm? Books! Ah,
you study! I can get a light for myself."

The dialogue was sustained in the hard-whispered tones prescribed by
darkness. Cornelia kissed her father's forehead, and they parted.

At breakfast in the morning it was the habit of all the ladies to
assemble, partly to countenance the decency of matin-prayers, and also
to give the head of the household their dutiful society till business
called him away. Adela, in earlier days, had maintained that early
rising was not fashionable; but she soon grasped the idea that a
great rivalry with Fashion, in minor matters (where the support of the
satirist might be counted on), was the proper policy of Brookfield. Mrs.
Chump was given to be extremely fashionable in her hours, and began her
Brookfield career by coming downstairs at ten and eleven o'clock, when
she found a desolate table, well stocked indeed, but without any of the
exuberant smiles of nourishment which a morning repast should wear.

"You are a Protestant, ma'am, are you not?" Adela mildly questioned,
after inform