rving that if she
drank with a ghost in memory, in reality she drank with nothing better
than an animated puppet. The nights ended with Mr. Pole either sleeping
in his arm-chair (upon which occasions one daughter watched him and told
dreadful tales of his waking), or staggering to bed, debating on the
stairs between tea and brandy, complaining of a loss of sensation at his
knee-cap, or elbow, or else rubbing his head and laughing hysterically.
His bride was not at such moments observant. No wonder Wilfrid kept out
of the way, if he had not better occupation elsewhere. The ladies, in
their utter anguish, after inveighing against the baneful Port, had
begged their father to delay no more to marry the woman. "Why?" said Mr.
Pole, sharply; "what do you want me to marry her for?" They were obliged
to keep up the delusion, and said, "Because she seems suited to you as
a companion." That satisfied him. "Oh! we won't be in a hurry," he said,
and named a day within a month; and not liking their unready faces,
laughed, and dismissed the idea aloud, as if he had not earnestly been
entertaining it.

The ladies of Brookfield held no more their happy, energetic midnight
consultations. They had begun to crave for sleep and a snatch of
forgetfulness, the scourge being daily on their flesh: and they had now
no plans to discuss; they had no distant horizon of low vague lights
that used ever to be beyond their morrow. They kissed at the bedroom
door of one, and separated. Silence was their only protection to the
Nice Feelings, now that Fine Shades had become impossible. Adela
had almost made herself distinct from her sisters since the yachting
expedition. She had grown severely careful of the keys of her
writing-desk, and would sometimes slip the bolt of her bedroom door, and
answer "Eh?" dubiously in tone, when her sisters had knocked twice, and
had said "Open" once. The house of Brookfield showed those divisional
rents which an admonitory quaking of the earth will create. Neither
sister was satisfied with the other. Cornelia's treatment of Sir
Twickenham was almost openly condemned, but at the same time it seemed
to Arabella that the baronet was receiving more than the necessary
amount of consolation from the bride of Captain Gambier, and that yacht
habits and moralities had been recently imported to Brookfield. Adela,
for her part, looked sadly on Arabella, and longed to tell her, as she
told Cornelia, that if she continued to play Fre