plomatist, walking
away to the window. And as for grandmamma at the end of this little
speech and scene, her ladyship's likeness to her brother, the late
revered Lord Steyne, was more frightful than ever.

After a minute's pause, she rose up on her crooked stick, and said, "I
really feel I am unworthy to keep company with so much exquisite virtue.
It will be enhanced, my lord, by the thought of the pecuniary
sacrifice which you are making, for I suppose you know that I have been
hoarding--yes, and saving, and pinching,--denying myself the necessities
of life, in order that my grandson might one day have enough to support
his rank. Go and live and starve in your dreary old house, and marry a
parson's daughter, and sing psalms with your precious mother; and I have
no doubt you and she--she who has thwarted me all through life, and
whom I hated,--yes, I hated from the moment she took my son from me, and
brought misery into my family, will be all the happier when she thinks
that she has made a poor, fond, lonely old woman more lonely and
miserable. If you please, George Barnes, be good enough to tell my
people that I shall go back to Baden," and waving her children away from
her, the old woman tottered out of the room on her crutch.

So the wicked fairy drove away disappointed in the chariot with the very
dragons which had brought her away in the morning, and just had time
to get their feed of black bread. I wonder whether they were the horses
Clive and J. J. and Jack Belsize had used when they passed on their road
to Switzerland? Black Care sits behind all sorts of horses, and gives
a trinkgelt to postillions all over the map. A thrill of triumph may be
permitted to Lady Walham after her victory over her mother-in-law. What
Christian woman does not like to conquer another? and if that other were
a mother-in-law, would the victory be less sweet? Husbands and wives
both will be pleased that Lady Walham has had the better of this bout:
and you, young boys and virgins, when your turn comes to be married, you
will understand the hidden meaning of this passage. George Barnes got
Oliver Twist out, and began to read therein. Miss Nancy and Fanny again
were summoned before this little company to frighten and delight them.
I dare say even Fagin and Miss Nancy failed with the widow, so absorbed
was she with the thoughts of the victory which she had just won. For the
evening service, in which her sons rejoiced her fond heart by joinin