Castlemaine was nothing to Clarissa Harlowe. As
for poetry, Tennyson, she said, was all sugar-candy; he had neither
the common sense, nor the wit, nor, as she declared, to her ear the
melody of Pope. All the poets of the present century, she declared,
if put together, could not have written the Rape of the Lock. Pretty
as she was, and small, and nice, and lady-like, I think she liked
her literature rather strong. It is certain that she had Smollett's
novels in a cupboard up-stairs, and it was said that she had been
found reading one of Wycherley's plays.

The strongest point in her character was her contempt of money. Not
that she had any objection to it, or would at all have turned up
her nose at another hundred a year had anybody left to her such
an accession of income; but that in real truth she never measured
herself by what she possessed, or others by what they possessed. She
was as grand a lady to herself, eating her little bit of cold mutton,
or dining off a tiny sole, as though she sat at the finest banquet
that could be spread. She had no fear of economies, either before her
two handmaids or anybody else in the world. She was fond of her tea,
and in summer could have cream for twopence; but when cream became
dear, she saved money and had a pen'north of milk. She drank two
glasses of Marsala every day, and let it be clearly understood that
she couldn't afford sherry. But when she gave a tea-party, as she
did, perhaps, six or seven times a year, sherry was always handed
round with cake before the people went away. There were matters in
which she was extravagant. When she went out herself she never took
one of the common street flies, but paid eighteen pence extra to get
a brougham from the Dragon. And when Mary Lowther,--who had only
fifty pounds a year of her own, with which she clothed herself and
provided herself with pocket-money,--was going to Bullhampton, Miss
Marrable actually proposed to her to take one of the maids with her.
Mary, of course, would not hear of it, and said that she should just
as soon think of taking the house; but Miss Marrable had thought
that it would, perhaps, not be well for a girl so well-born as Miss
Lowther to go out visiting without a maid. She herself very rarely
left Loring, because she could not afford it; but when, two summers
back, she did go to Weston-super-Mare for a fortnight, she took one
of the girls with her.

Miss Marrable had heard a great deal about Mr. Gilmore. M