proached; and
the little pair of babies, by their mere soft helplessness, gave him an
indescribable sense of fondness and refreshment. His little ones were
all the world to him, and he could not see how a pattern mother should
ever be so happy as with them around her. He forgot the difference
between the pastime of an hour and the employment of a day. The need
of such care on her part was the greater since the nursery
establishment was deficient. The grand nurse had almost abdicated on
the double addition to her charge, and had only been bribed to stay by
an ill-spared increase in wages, and a share in an underling, who was
also to help Charlotte in her housemaid's department. Nevertheless,
the nurse was always complaining; the children, though healthy, always
crying, and their father always certain it was somebody's fault. Nor
did the family expenses diminish, retrench his own indulgences as he
might. It was the mistress's eye that was wanting, and Isabel did not
know how to use it. The few domestic cares that she perceived to be
her duty were gone through as weary tasks, and her mind continued
involved in her own romantic world, where she was oblivious of all that
was troublesome or vexatious. Now and then she was aware of a sluggish
dulness that seemed to be creeping over her higher aspirations--a want
of glow and feeling on religious subjects, even in the most sacred
moments; and she wondered and grieved at a condition, such as she had
never experienced in what she had thought far more untoward
circumstances. She did not see the difference between doing her best
when her will was thwarted, and her present life of neglect and
indulgence. Nothing roused her; she did not perceive omissions that
would have fretted women of housewifely instincts, and her soft dignity
and smooth temper felt few annoyances; and though James could sometimes
be petulant, he was always withheld from reproving her both by his
enthusiastic fondness, and his sense that for him she had quitted her
natural station of ease and prosperity.

On a dark hazy November afternoon, when the boys had been unusually
obtuse and mischievous, and James, worn-out, wearied, and uncertain
whether his cuts had alighted on the most guilty heads, strode home
with his arm full of Latin exercises, launched them into the study, and
was running up to the drawing-room, when he almost fell over Charlotte,
who was scouring the stairs.

She gave a little start a