omprehensible. In the course of his efforts to render himself
agreeable, he contrived to possess himself of the two long sofa cushions
and a square one; with which, after rolling them about for some time
with strange gestures, he managed to erect a sort of barrier between
himself and the object of his attentions. Caroline, quite willing that
they should be sundered, soon devised an excuse for stepping over to the
opposite side of the room, and taking up a position beside Mrs. Sykes,
of which good lady she entreated some instruction in a new stitch in
ornamental knitting, a favour readily granted; and thus Peter Augustus
was thrown out.

Very sullenly did his countenance lower when he saw himself
abandoned--left entirely to his own resources, on a large sofa, with the
charge of three small cushions on his hands. The fact was, he felt
disposed seriously to cultivate acquaintance with Miss Helstone, because
he thought, in common with others, that her uncle possessed money, and
concluded that, since he had no children, he would probably leave it to
his niece. Gerard Moore was better instructed on this point: he had seen
the neat church that owed its origin to the rector's zeal and cash, and
more than once, in his inmost soul, had cursed an expensive caprice
which crossed his wishes.

The evening seemed long to one person in that room. Caroline at
intervals dropped her knitting on her lap, and gave herself up to a sort
of brain-lethargy--closing her eyes and depressing her head--caused by
what seemed to her the unmeaning hum around her,--the inharmonious,
tasteless rattle of the piano keys, the squeaking and gasping notes of
the flute, the laughter and mirth of her uncle, and Hannah, and Mary,
she could not tell whence originating, for she heard nothing comic or
gleeful in their discourse; and more than all, by the interminable
gossip of Mrs. Sykes murmured close at her ear, gossip which rang the
changes on four subjects--her own health and that of the various
members of her family; the missionary and Jew baskets and their
contents; the late meeting at Nunnely, and one which was expected to
come off next week at Whinbury.

Tired at length to exhaustion, she embraced the opportunity of Mr.
Sweeting coming up to speak to Mrs. Sykes to slip quietly out of the
apartment, and seek a moment's respite in solitude. She repaired to the
dining-room, where the clear but now low remnant of a fire still burned
in the grate. The place