r a certain period of life, marriage does make people
ridiculous, and, as much for your sake as our own, we would advise you to
discard a notion that cannot benefit anybody. Believe in our attachment;
and we shall see you here now and then, and correspond with you when you
are away. And..."

"Oh, ye puss! such an eel as y' are!" Mrs. Chump cried out. "What are ye
doin' but sugarin' the same dose, miss! Be qu't! It's a traitor that
makes what's nasty taste agree'ble. D'ye think my stomach's a fool? Ye
may wheedle the mouth, but not the stomach."

At this offence there fell a dead silence. Wilfrid gazed on them all
indifferently, waiting for the moment to strike a final blow.

When she had grasped the fact that Pity did not sit in the assembly, Mrs.
Chump rose.

"Oh! if I haven't been sitting among three owls and a raven," she
exclaimed. Then she fussed at her gown. "I wish ye good day, young ladus,
and mayhap ye'd like to be interduced to No. 2 yourselves, some fine
mornin'? Prov'dence can wait. There's a patient hen on the eggs of all of
ye! I wouldn't marry Pole now--not if he was to fall flat and howl for
me. Mr. Wilfrud, I wish ye good-bye. Ye've done your work. I'll be out of
this house in half-an-hour."

This was not quite what Wilfrid had meant to effect. He proposed to her
that she should come to the yacht, and indeed leave Brookfield to go on
board. But Mrs. Chump was in that frame of mind when, shamefully wounded
by others, we find our comfort in wilfully wounding ourselves. "No," she
said (betraying a meagre mollification at every offer), "I'll not stop. I
won't go to the yacht--unless I think better of ut. But I won't stop.
Ye've hurrt me, and I'll say good-bye. I hope ye'll none of ye be widows.
It's a crool thing. And when ye've got no children of your own, and feel,
all your inside risin' to another person's, and they hate ye--hate ye!
Oh! Oh!--There, Mr. Wilfrud, ye needn't touch me elbow. Oh, dear! look at
me in the glass! and my hair! Annybody'd swear I'd been drinkin'. I won't
let Pole look at me. That'd cure 'm. And he must let me have money,
because I don't care for 'cumulations. Not now, when there's no young--no
garls and a precious boy, who'd say, when I'm gone, 'Bless her' Oh! 'Poor
thing! Bless--' Oh! Augh!" A note of Sorrow's own was fetched; and the
next instant, with a figure of dignity, the afflicted woman observed:
"There's seven bottles of my Porrt, and there's eleven of champagne, and