ds be, of being
useful in the position in which he will place me. What better can I
do than this? You can do better, Adela. I know you will do better. To
have loved, and married for love the poorest gentleman on God's earth
would be to have done better. But I cannot do that now. The power of
doing that has been taken from me. The question with me was, whether
I should be useful as a wife, or useless as an unmarried woman? For
useless I should have been, and petulant, and wretched. Employment,
work, duty, will now save me from that. Dear Adela, try to look at
it in this way if it be possible. Do not throw me over without an
attempt. Do not be unmerciful. * * * At any rate," she ended her
letter by saying--"At any rate you will come to me in London in the
early, early spring. Say that you will do so, or I shall think that
you mean to abandon me altogether!"

Adela answered this as sweetly and as delicately as she could.
Natures, she said, were different, and it would be presumptuous in
her to set herself up as judge on her friend's conduct. She would
abstain from doing so, and would pray to God that Caroline and Sir
Henry might be happy together. And as to going to London in the
spring, she would do so if her aunt Penelope's plans would allow of
it. She must of course be governed by her aunt Penelope, who was now
hurrying home from Italy on purpose to give her a home.

Nothing further occurred this year at Littlebath sufficiently
memorable to need relation, unless it be necessary further to relate
Miss Baker's nervous apprehensions respecting Sir Lionel. She was,
in truth, so innocent that she would have revealed every day to her
young friend the inmost secrets of her heart if she had had secrets.
But, in truth, she had none. She was desperately jealous of Miss
Todd, but she herself knew not why. She asked all manner of questions
as to his going and coming, but she never asked herself why she
was so anxious about it. She was in a twitter of sentimental
restlessness, but she did not understand the cause of her own
uneasiness. On the days that Sir Lionel came to her, she was happy,
and in good spirits; when, however, he went to Miss Todd, she was
fretful. Sometimes she would rally him on his admiration for her
rival, but she did it with a bad grace. Wit, repartee, and sarcasm
were by no means her forte. She could not have stood up for five
minutes against deaf old Mrs. Leake; and when she tried her hand
on Sir Lionel