les had said, but Tracy was so vehement on the subject of his
having met his deserts, that they partly guessed it to bear some
relation to their sex's defencelessness, and they approved their
brother's work.

Sir Twickenham and Captain Gambier dined at Brookfield that day. However
astonishing it might be to one who knew his character and triumphs, the
captain was a butterfly netted, and was on the highroad to an exhibition
of himself pinned, with his wings outspread. During the service of the
table Tracy relieved Adela from Mrs. Chump's inadvertencies and
little bits of feminine malice, but he could not help the captain, who
blundered like a schoolboy in her rough hands. It was noted that Sir
Twickenham reserved the tolerating smile he once had for her. Mr.
Pole's nervous fretfulness had increased. He complained in occasional
underbreaths, correcting himself immediately with a "No, no!" and
blinking briskly.

But after dinner came the time when the painfullest scene was daily
enacted. Mrs. Chump drank Port freely. To drink it fondly, it was
necessary that she should have another rosy wineglass to nod to, and
Mr. Pole, whose taste for wine had been weakened, took this post as his
duty. The watchful, pinched features of the poor pale little man bloomed
unnaturally, and his unintelligible eyes sparkled as he emptied his
glass. His daughters knew that he drank, not for his pleasure, but for
their benefit; that he might sustain Martha Chump in the delusion that
he was a fitting bridegroom, and with her money save them from ruin.
Each evening, with remorse that blotted all perception of the tragic
comicality of the show, they saw him, in his false strength and his
anxiety concerning his pulse's play, act this part. The recurring words,
"Now, Martha, here's the Port," sent a cold wave through their blood.
They knew what the doctor remarked on the effect of that Port. "Ill!"
Mrs. Chump would cry, when she saw him wink after sipping; "you, Pole!
what do they say of ye, ye deer!" and she returned the wink, the ladies
looking on. Not to drink a proper quantum of Port, when Port was on the
table, was, in Mrs. Chump's eyes, mean for a man. Even Chump, she would
say, was master of his bottle, and thought nothing of it. "Who does?"
cried her present suitor, and the Port ebbed, and his cheeks grew
crimson.

This frightful rivalry with the ghost of Alderman Chump continued night
after night. The rapturous Martha was incapable of obse