sult you."

Mrs. Murray knew her brother-in-law too well to irritate him by
condolence or sympathy. She said only: "Why be anxious? Esther can take
care of herself. Perhaps she will marry, but if not, she has nothing to
fear. The unmarried women nowadays are better off than the married
ones."

"Oh!" said Mr. Dudley with his usual air of deep gravity; "it is not
she, but her husband who is on my mind. I have hated the fellow all his
life. About twice a year I have treacherously stabbed him in the back as
he was going out of my own front door. I knew that he would interfere
with my comfort if I let him get a footing. After all he was always a
poor creature, and did not deserve to live. My conscience does not
reproach me. But now, when I am weak, and his ghost rises in an
irrepressible manner, and grins at me on my own threshold, I begin to
feel a sort of pity, mingled with contempt. I want to show charity to
him before I die."

"What on earth do you mean?" asked his sister-in-law with an impatient
groan. "For thirty years I have been trying to understand you, and you
grow worse every year."

"Now, I am not surprised to hear you say so. Any sympathy for the
husband is unusual, no doubt, yet I am not prepared to admit that it is
unintelligible. You go too far."

"Take your own way, William. When you are tired, let me know what it is
that you think I can do."

"I want you to find the poor fellow, and tell him that I bear him no
real ill-will."

"You want me to find a husband for Esther?"

"If you have nothing better to do. I have looked rather carefully
through her list of friends, and, taking out the dancing men who don't
count, I see nobody who would answer, except perhaps her Cousin George,
and to marry him would be cold-blooded. She might as well marry you."

"I have thought a great deal about that match, as you know," replied
Mrs. Murray. "It would not answer. I could get over the cousinship, if
I must, but Esther will want a husband to herself and George is a
vagabond. He could never make her happy."

"George had the ill-luck," said Mr. Dudley, "to inherit a small spark of
something almost like genius; and a little weak genius mixed in with a
little fortune, goes a long way towards making a jack-o-lantern. Still
we won't exaggerate George's genius. After all there is not enough of it
to prevent his being the best of the lot."

"He could not hold her a week," said Mrs. Murray; "nor she him."

"I own that