ing her that she missed family prayer by her late descent.
Mrs. Chump assured her that she was a firm Protestant, and liked to see
faces at the breakfast-table. The poor woman was reduced to submit to
the rigour of the hour, coming down flustered, and endeavouring to look
devout, while many uncertainties as to the condition of the hooks of her
attire distracted her mind and fingers. On one occasion, Gainsford, the
footman, had been seen with his eye on her; and while Mr. Pole read of
sacred things, at a pace composed of slow march and amble, this unhappy
man was heard struggling to keep under and extinguish a devil of
laughter, by which his human weakness was shaken: He retired from the
room with the speed of a voyager about to pay tribute on high seas. Mr.
Pole cast a pregnant look at the servants' row as he closed the book;
but the expression of his daughters' faces positively signified that no
remark was to be made, and he contained himself. Later, the ladies told
him that Gainsford had done no worse than any uneducated man would have
been guilty of doing. Mrs. Chump had, it appeared, a mother's feeling
for one flat curl on her rugged forehead, which was often fondly
caressed by her, for the sake of ascertaining its fixity. Doubts of
the precision of outline and general welfare of this curl, apparently,
caused her to straighten her back and furtively raise her head, with an
easy upward motion, as of a cork alighted in water, above the level
of the looking-glass on her left hand--an action she repeated, with a
solemn aspect, four times; at which point Gainsford gave way. The ladies
accorded him every extenuation for the offence. They themselves, but
for the heroism of exalted natures, must have succumbed to the gross
temptation. "It is difficult, dear papa, to bring one's mind to
religious thoughts in her company, even when she is quiescent," they
said. Thus, by the prettiest exercise of charity that can be conceived,
they pleaded for the man Gainsford, while they struck a blow at Mrs.
Chump; and in performing one of the virtues laid down by religion,
proved their enemy to be hostile to its influences.

Mrs. Chump was this morning very late. The office of morning reader was
new to Mr. Pole, who had undertaken it, when first Squire of Brookfield,
at the dictate of the ladies his daughters; so that, waiting with the
book before him and his audience expectant, he lacked composure, spoke
irritably in an under-breath of 'th