with vinegar! More starch? The Queen's
washing, I'm firmly persuaded, doesn't come to so much as ours.
Sandpaper? Sandpaper means wastepaper in this profligate house. I shall
tell your master. I really _can_ NOT make the housekeeping money last at
this rate. Don't go, Madame Pratolungo! I shall have done directly. What!
You must go! Oh, then, put the book back on my lap, please--and look
behind that sack of flour. The first volume slipped down there this
morning, and I haven't had time to pick it up since. (Sandpaper! Do you
think I'm made of sandpaper!) Have you found the first volume? Ah, that's
it. All over flour! there's a hole in the sack I suppose. Twelve sheets
of sandpaper used in a week! What for? I defy any of you to tell me what
for. Waste! waste! shameful sinful waste!" At this point in Mrs. Finch's
lamentations, I made my escape with the book, and left the subject of
Oscar Dubourg to be introduced at a fitter opportunity. The last words I
heard, through the screams of the baby, as I ascended the stairs, were
words still relating to the week's prodigal consumption of sandpaper. Let
us drop a tear, if you please, over the woes of Mrs. Finch, and leave the
British matron apostrophizing domestic economy in the odorous seclusion
of her own storeroom.

I had just related to Lucilla the failure of my expedition to the other
side of the house, when the groom returned, bringing with him the gold
vase, and a letter.

Oscar's answer was judiciously modeled to imitate the brevity of
Lucilla's note. "You have made me a happy man again. When may I follow
the vase?" There, in two sentences, was the whole letter.

I had another discussion with Lucilla, relating to the propriety of our
receiving Oscar in Reverend Finch's absence. It was only possible to
persuade her to wait until she had at least heard from her father, by
consenting to take another walk towards Browndown the next morning. This
new concession satisfied her. She had received his present; she had
exchanged letters with him--that was enough to content her for the time.

"Do you think he is getting fond of me?" she asked, the last thing at
night; taking her gold vase to bed with her, poor dear--exactly as she
might have taken a new toy to bed with her when she was a child. "Give
him time, my love," I answered. "It isn't everybody who can travel at
your pace in such a serious matter as this." My banter had no effect upon
her. "Go away with your candle," she s