r
to her, happened at that moment to be placed, certainly required an
amount of consideration, which could not be too soon bestowed.

By a combination of disagreeables, everything that could possibly occur
to disturb the peace of the family seemed to have taken place at once;
like Macbeth's, their troubles had truly come in battalions, and now
that the serenity of their domestic position was destroyed, minor evils
and annoyances which that very serenity had enabled them to hold at
arm's-length became gigantic, and added much to their distress.

The small income, which, when all was happiness, health and peace, was
made to constitute a comfortable household, was now totally inadequate
to do so--the power to economise and to make the most of a little, had
flown along with that contentedness of spirit which the harmony of
circumstances alone could produce.

It was not to be supposed that poor Mrs. Bannerworth could now, as she
had formerly done, when her mind was free from anxiety, attend to those
domestic matters which make up the comforts of a family--distracted at
the situation of her daughter, and bewildered by the rapid succession of
troublesome events which so short a period of time had given birth to,
she fell into an inert state of mind as different as anything could
possibly be, from her former active existence.

It has likewise been seen how the very domestics fled from Bannerworth
Hall in dismay, rather than remain beneath the same roof with a family
believed to be subject to the visitations of so awful a being as a
vampyre.

Among the class who occupy positions of servitude, certainly there might
have been found some, who, with feelings and understandings above such
considerations, would have clung sympathetically to that family in
distress, which they had known under a happier aspect; but it had not
been the good fortune of the Bannerworths to have such as these about
them; hence selfishness had its way, and they were deserted. It was not
likely, then, that strangers would willingly accept service in a family
so situated, without some powerful impulse in the shape of a higher
pecuniary consideration, as was completely out of the power of the
Bannerworths to offer.

Thus was it, then, that most cruelly, at the very time that they had
most need of assistance and of sympathy, this unfortunate family almost
became isolated from their kind; and, apart from every other
consideration, it would have been almost