w whether he were really
ruined, or simply pretending it. She had now become so used to
her position in this respect, that she did not allow fiscal
considerations to mar her happiness. Food and clothing had
always come to her,--including velvet gowns, new trinkets, and a
man-cook,--and she presumed that they would continue to come. But
that daily conference with her husband was almost too much for her.
She struggled to avoid it; and, as far as the ways and means were
concerned, would have allowed them to arrange themselves, if he would
only have permitted it. But he insisted on seeing her daily in his
own sitting-room; and she had acknowledged to her favourite daughter,
Margaretta, that those half-hours would soon be the death of her.
"I sometimes feel," she said, "that I am going mad before I can get
out." And she reproached herself, probably without reason, in that
she had brought much of this upon herself. In former days the earl
had been constantly away from home, and the countess had complained.
Like many other women, she had not known when she was well off. She
had complained, urging upon her lord that he should devote more
of his time to his own hearth. It is probable that her ladyship's
remonstrances had been less efficacious than the state of his own
health in producing that domestic constancy which he now practised;
but it is certain that she looked back with bitter regret to the
happy days when she was deserted, jealous, and querulous. "Don't
you wish we could get Sir Omicron to order him to the German Spas?"
she had said to Margaretta. Now Sir Omicron was the great London
physician, and might, no doubt, do much in that way.

But no such happy order had as yet been given; and, as far as the
family could foresee, paterfamilias intended to pass the winter with
them at Courcy. The guests, as I have said, were all gone, and none
but the family were in the house when her ladyship waited upon her
lord one morning at twelve o'clock, a few days after Mr Dale's visit
to the castle. He always breakfasted alone, and after breakfast found
in a French novel and a cigar what solace those innocent recreations
were still able to afford him. When the novel no longer excited him
and when he was saturated with smoke, he would send for his wife.
After that, his valet would dress him. "She gets it worse than I do,"
the man declared in the servants' hall, "and minds it a deal more. I
can give warning, and she can't."

"Better?