find our comfort in wilfully wounding ourselves. "No," she
said (betraying a meagre mollification at every offer), "I'll not stop.
I won't go to the yacht--unless I think better of ut. But I won't
stop. Ye've hurrt me, and I'll say good-bye. I hope ye'll none of ye be
widows. It's a crool thing. And when ye've got no children of your own,
and feel, all your inside risin' to another person's, and they hate
ye--hate ye! Oh! Oh!--There, Mr. Wilfrud, ye needn't touch me elbow. Oh,
dear! look at me in the glass! and my hair! Annybody'd swear I'd been
drinkin'. I won't let Pole look at me. That'd cure 'm. And he must let
me have money, because I don't care for 'cumulations. Not now, when
there's no young--no garls and a precious boy, who'd say, when I'm gone,
'Bless her' Oh! 'Poor thing! Bless--' Oh! Augh!" A note of Sorrow's
own was fetched; and the next instant, with a figure of dignity, the
afflicted woman observed: "There's seven bottles of my Porrt, and
there's eleven of champagne, and some comut clar't I shall write where
ut's to be sent. And, if you please, look to the packing; for bits o'
glass and a red stain's not like your precious hope when you're undoin
a hamper. And that's just myself now, and I'm a broken woman; but naver
mind, nobody!"

A very formal and stiff "Good-bye," succeeding a wheezy lamentation,
concluded the speech. Casting a look at the glass, Mrs. Chump retired,
with her fingers on the ornamental piece of hair.

The door having closed on her, Wilfrid said to his sisters: "I want one
of you to come with me to town immediately. Decide which will go."

His eyes questioned Cornelia. Hers were dropped.

"I have work to do," pleaded Adela.

"An appointment? You will break it."

"No, dear, not--"

"Not exactly an appointment. Then there's nothing to break. Put on your
bonnet."

Adela slipped from the room in a spirit of miserable obedience.

"I could not possibly leave papa," said Arabella, and Wilfrid nodded
his head. His sisters knew quite well what was his business in town,
but they felt that they were at his mercy, and dared not remonstrate.
Cornelia ventured to say, "I think she should not come back to us till
papa is in a better state."

"Perhaps not," replied Wilfrid, careless how much he betrayed by his
apprehension of the person indicated.

The two returned late that night, and were met by Arabella at the gate.

"Papa has been--don't be alarmed," she began. "He is better now. But
w