el. No, nor I him. My temper is difficult, Clive, and I fear few men
would bear with me. I feel, somehow, always very lonely. How old am I?
Twenty--I feel sometimes as if I was a hundred; and in the midst of all
these admirations and fetes and flatteries, so tired, oh, so tired! And
yet if I don't have them, I miss them. How I wish I was religious like
Madame de Florac: there is no day that she does not go to church. She
is for ever busy with charities, clergymen, conversions; I think the
Princess will be brought over ere long--that dear old Madame de Florac!
and yet she is no happier than the rest of us. Hortense is an empty
little thing, who thinks of her prosy fat Camille with spectacles, and
of her two children, and of nothing else in the world besides. Who is
happy? Clive!

Clive. You say Barnes's wife is not.

Ethel. We are like brother and sister, so I may talk to you. Barnes is
very cruel to her. At Newcome, last winter, poor Clara used to come into
my room with tears in her eyes morning after morning. He calls her a
fool; and seems to take a pride in humiliating her before company. My
poor father has luckily taken a great liking to her: and before him,
for he has grown very very hot-tempered since his illness, Barnes leaves
poor Clara alone. We were in hopes that the baby might make matters
better, but as it is a little girl, Barnes chooses to be very much
disappointed. He wants papa to give up his seat in Parliament, but he
clings to that more than anything. Oh, dear me! who is happy in the
world? What a pity Lord Highgate's father had not died sooner! He and
Barnes have been reconciled. I wonder my brother's spirit did not revolt
against it. The old lord used to keep a great sum of money at the bank,
I believe: and the present one does so still: he has paid all his debts
off: and Barnes is actually friends with him. He is always abusing
the Dorkings, who want to borrow money from the bank, he says. This
eagerness for money is horrible. If I had been Barnes I would never have
been reconciled with Mr. Belsize, never, never! And yet they say he was
quite right: and grandmamma is even pleased that Lord Highgate should
be asked to dine in Park Lane. Poor papa is there: come to attend his
parliamentary duties as he thinks. He went to a division the other
night; and was actually lifted out of his carriage and wheeled into the
lobby in a chair. The ministers thanked him for coming. I believe he
thinks he will have h