zly day, she pronounced her situation to be 'the ne plus ultra
of human misery!' She told the young bride (by way of a compliment)
that she would not have got up in _the middle of the night_ to be
present at the marriage of any other friend on earth. This phrase
might seem to most people only a pleasant hyperbole; but I am not
quite sure that it was so intended. The fact is, she has seen so
little of the world at any other hours than between noon and midnight,
that she has a very obscure sense of other periods of daily time. She
scarcely knows what morning is. Sunrise is to her as much of a
phenomenon as a total eclipse of the sun to any other person. She
cannot tell what mankind in general mean by breakfast-time, for she
has scarcely ever seen the world so early. And really half-past seven
was not very far from the middle of _her_ night.

Her husband, who is a little of a wag, compares her waking-life to the
appearance which the sun makes above the horizon on a winter day:
only, her morning is about his noon. He says, however, there appears
to be no necessary end to her sleep. It is like Decandolle's idea as
to the life of a tree: keep up the required conditions, as sap, &c.,
and the tree will never decay. So, keep up the necessary conditions
for her repose, and she continues to sleep. It is always some external
accident of a disturbing nature which gets her up. He has sometimes
proposed making an attempt so to arrange matters as to test how long
she _would_ sleep. But, unfortunately, he cannot provide against the
disturbing effect of hunger, so he fears she might not sleep above two
nights and a day at the most--a result that would not be worth the
trouble of the experiment. She takes all his jokes in good-humour, as
indeed she takes everything which does not positively interfere with
her favourite indulgence. '"Ah, little she'll reck if ye let her sleep
on," ought,' says he, 'to be her motto, being applicable to her in the
most trying crises of life, even that of the house burning about her
ears.'

He contrasts his life, which is a moderately active one, with hers. 'I
went up to my dressing-room, about nine o'clock one evening, to
prepare to go to a party, when the sound of heavy breathing from the
neighbouring apartment informed me that she had reached the land of
forgetfulness. I went out, spent a couple of hours in conversation,
had supper, set several new conundrums agoing in life, and made one or
two new frien