ds upon such a day."

The rebel Clara, delighting in his banter, was heard: "Can we furnish
sufficient?"

"A poet or two could help us."

"Perhaps a statesman," she suggested.

"A pugilist, if wanted."

"For blowy days," observed Dr. Middleton, and hastily in penitence
picked up the conversation he had unintentionally prostrated, with a
general remark on new-fangled notions, and a word aside to Vernon;
which created the blissful suspicion in Clara that her father was
indisposed to second Sir Willoughby's opinions even when sharing them.

Sir Willoughby had led the conversation. Displeased that the lead
should be withdrawn from him, he turned to Clara and related one of the
after-dinner anecdotes of Dr. Corney; and another, with a vast deal of
human nature in it, concerning a valetudinarian gentleman, whose wife
chanced to be desperately ill, and he went to the physicians assembled
in consultation outside the sick-room, imploring them by all he valued,
and in tears, to save the poor patient for him, saying: "She is
everything to me, everything; and if she dies I am compelled to run the
risks of marrying again; I must marry again; for she has accustomed me
so to the little attentions of a wife, that in truth I can't. I can't
lose her! She must be saved!" And the loving husband of any devoted
wife wrung his hands.

"Now, there, Clara, there you have the Egoist," added Sir Willoughby.
"That is the perfect Egoist. You see what he comes to--and his wife!
The man was utterly unconscious of giving vent to the grossest
selfishness."

"An Egoist!" said Clara.

"Beware of marrying an Egoist, my dear!" He bowed gallantly; and so
blindly fatuous did he appear to her, that she could hardly believe him
guilty of uttering the words she had heard from him, and kept her eyes
on him vacantly till she came to a sudden full stop in the thoughts
directing her gaze. She looked at Vernon, she looked at her father, and
at the ladies Eleanor and Isabel. None of them saw the man in the
word, none noticed the word; yet this word was her medical herb, her
illuminating lamp, the key of him (and, alas, but she thought it by
feeling her need of one), the advocate pleading in apology for her.
Egoist! She beheld him--unfortunate, self-designated man that he
was!--in his good qualities as well as bad under the implacable lamp,
and his good were drenched in his first person singular. His generosity
roared of I louder than the rest. Conceive hi