not esteem him less now. She knew no point or particle in which
he did not do his duty with accuracy. But no person can live
happily with another,--not even with a brother or a sister or a
friend,--simply upon esteem. All the virtues in the calendar,
though they exist on each side, will not make a man and woman happy
together, unless there be sympathy. Lady Laura was beginning to
find out that there was a lack of sympathy between herself and her
husband.

She thought of this till she was tired of thinking of it, and then,
wishing to divert her mind, she took up the book that was lying
nearest to her hand. It was a volume of a new novel which she had
been reading on the previous day, and now, without much thought about
it, she went on with her reading. There came to her, no doubt, some
dim, half-formed idea that, as she was freed from going to church by
the plea of a headache, she was also absolved by the same plea from
other Sunday hindrances. A child, when it is ill, has buttered toast
and a picture-book instead of bread-and-milk and lessons. In this
way, Lady Laura conceived herself to be entitled to her novel.

While she was reading it, there came a knock at the door, and
Barrington Erle was shown upstairs. Mr. Kennedy had given no orders
against Sunday visitors, but had simply said that Sunday visiting was
not to his taste. Barrington, however, was Lady Laura's cousin, and
people must be very strict if they can't see their cousins on Sunday.
Lady Laura soon lost her headache altogether in the animation
of discussing the chances of the new Reform Bill with the Prime
Minister's private secretary; and had left her chair, and was
standing by the table with the novel in her hand, protesting this
and denying that, expressing infinite confidence in Mr. Monk, and
violently denouncing Mr. Turnbull, when her husband returned from
church and came up into the drawing-room. Lady Laura had forgotten
her headache altogether, and had in her composition none of that
thoughtfulness of hypocrisy which would have taught her to moderate
her political feeling at her husband's return.

"I do declare," she said, "that if Mr. Turnbull opposes the
Government measure now, because he can't have his own way in
everything, I will never again put my trust in any man who calls
himself a popular leader."

"You never should," said Barrington Erle.

"That's all very well for you, Barrington, who are an aristocratic
Whig of the old official sc