were full of excitement and of occupation during
the blazing August weather, not so much indeed as is common in many
houses in which the expectant bridegroom is always coming and going;
though perhaps the place of that exhilarating commotion was more or
less filled by the ever-present diversity of opinion, the excitement
of a subdued but never-ended conflict in which one was always on the
defensive, and the other covertly or openly attacking, or at least
believed to be so doing, the distant and unseen object to which all
their thoughts turned. Mrs. Dennistoun, indeed, was not always aggressive,
her opposition was but in fits and starts. Often her feelings of pain
and alarm were quiescent in that unfeigned and salutary interest in
clothes and necessities of preparation which is almost always a resource
to a woman's mind. It is wrong to undervalue this possibility which
compensates a woman in a small degree for some of her special troubles.
When the mother's heart was very heavy, it was often diverted a little
by the discussion of a dinner dress, or made to forget itself for the
moment in a question about the cut of a sleeve, or which would be most
becoming to Elinor of two colours for a ball gown. But though Mrs.
Dennistoun forgot often, Elinor never forgot. The dresses and "things"
generally occupied her a great deal, but not in the form of the anodyne
which they supplied to her mother. Her mind was always on the alert,
looking out for those flying arrows of warfare which your true fighter
lets fly in the most innocent conversation at the most unexpected
moments. Elinor thus flung her shield in her mother's face a hundred
times when that poor lady was thinking no evil, when she was altogether
occupied by the question of frills and laces, or whether tucks or
flounces were best, and she was startled many times by that unnecessary
rattle of Elinor's arms. "I was not thinking of Mr. Compton," she would
sometimes be driven to say; "he was not in my head at all. I was
thinking of nothing more important than that walking dress, and what you
had best wear in the afternoon when you are on those grand visits."

There was one thing which occasioned a little discussion between them,
and that was the necessary civility of asking the neighbours to inspect
these "things" when they were finally ready. It was only the argument
that these neighbours would be Mrs. Dennistoun's sole resource when she
was left alone that made Elinor assent a