a solemn church-organ. Sir Timothy? But
Sir Timothy does not jump with the same grave agility as Sir Twickenham!
If she rejects him, it will be half attributable to this.

"My own brother! I expect no confidences, but a whisper warns me that
you have not been to Stornley twice without experiencing the truth of
our old discovery, that the Poles are magnetic? Why should we conceal
it from ourselves, if it be so? I think it a folly, and fraught with
danger, for people not to know their characteristics. If they attract,
they should keep in a circle where they will have no reason to revolt
at, or say, repent of what they attract. My argumentative sister does
not coincide. If she did, she would lose her argument.

"Adieu! Such is my dulness, I doubt whether I have made my meaning
clear.

"Your thrice affectionate

"Adela.

"P.S.--Lady Gosstre has just taken Emilia to Richford for a week. Papa
starts for Bidport to-morrow."

This short and rather blunt exercise in Fine Shades was read impatiently
by Wilfrid. "Why doesn't she write plain to the sense?" he asked, with
the usual injustice of men, who demand a statement of facts, forgetting
how few there are to feed the post; and that indication and suggestion
are the only language for the multitude of facts unborn and possible.
Twilight best shows to the eye what may be.

"I suppose I must go down there," he said to himself, keeping a
meditative watch on the postscript, as if it possessed the capability of
slipping away and deceiving him. "Does she mean that Cornelia sees
too much of this man Barrett? or, what does she mean?" And now he saw
meanings in the simple passages, and none at all in the intricate ones;
and the double-meanings were monsters that ate one another up till
nothing remained of them. In the end, however, he made a wrathful guess
and came to a resolution, which brought him to the door of the house
next day at noon. He took some pains in noting the exact spot where he
had last seen Emilia half in moonlight, and then dismissed her image
peremptorily. The house was apparently empty. Gainsford, the footman,
gave information that he thought the ladies were upstairs, but did not
volunteer to send a maid to them. He stood in deferential footman's
attitude, with the aspect of a dog who would laugh if he could, but
being a footman out of his natural element, cannot.

"Here's a specimen of the new plan of treating servants!" thought