t it; it has too much truth in it to be denounced--nay, if we are not
alert and quick of wit, we shall be deceived by it, and wonder in the
end, as the fool does, why heaven struck that final blow; concluding that
it was but another whimsy of the Gods. The ladies prayed to their mother.
They were indeed suffering vile torture. Ethereal eyes might pardon the
unconscious jugglery which made their hearts cry out to her that the step
they were about to take was to save her children from seeming to
acquiesce in a dishonour to her memory. Some such words Adela's tongue
did not shrink from; and as it is a common habit for us to give to the
objects we mentally address just as much brain as is wanted for the
occasion, she is not to be held singular.

Colonel Pierson promised to stay a week on his return from Ireland. "Will
that person be here?" he designated Mrs. Chump; who, among other things,
had reproached him for fighting with foreign steel and wearing any
uniform but the red.

The ladies and Colonel Pierson were soon of one mind in relation to Mrs.
Chump. Certain salient quiet remarks dropped by him were cherished after
his departure; they were half-willing to think that he had been directed
to come to them, bearer of a message from a heavenly world to urge them
to action. They had need of a spiritual exaltation, to relieve them from
the palpable depression caused by the weight of Mrs. Chump. They
encouraged one another with exclamations on the oddness of a visit from
their mother's brother, at such a time of tribulation, indecision, and
general darkness.

Mrs. Chump remained on the field. When Adela begged her papa to tell her
how long the lady was to stay, he replied: "Eh? By the way, I haven't
asked her;" and retreated from this almost too obvious piece of
simplicity, with, "I want you to know her: I want you to like her--want
you to get to understand her. Won't talk about her going just yet."

If they could have seen a limit to that wholesale slaughter of the Nice
Feelings, they might have summoned patience to avoid the desperate step
to immediate relief: but they saw none. Their father's quaint kindness
and Wilfrid's treachery had fixed her there, perhaps for good. The choice
was, to let London come and see them dragged through the mire by the
monstrous woman, or to seek new homes. London, they contended, could not
further be put off, and would come, especially now that the season was
dying. After all, their parting