didn't call
it 'rude health.' I cannot conceive anything more thoroughly provoking
than the habit of estimating one's sufferings by the very efforts made
to suppress them."

"Sufferings, my dear? I really was not aware that you had sufferings."

"I am quite sure of that; nor is it my habit to afflict others with
complaint. I 'm sure your friend, Mr. Grounsell, would be equally unable
to acknowledge their existence. How I do hate that man! and I know,
Stafford, he hates us. Oh, you smile, as if to say, 'Only some of us;
'but I tell you he detests us all, and his old school-fellow, as he
vulgarly persists in calling you, as much as the others."

"I sincerely hope you are mistaken."

"Polite, certainly; you trust that his dislike is limited to myself.
Not that, for my own part, I have the least objection to any amount of
detestation with which he may honor me; it is the tribute the low and
obscure invariably render the well-born, and I am quite ready to accept
it; but I own it is a little hard that I must submit to the infliction
beneath my own roof."

"My dear Hester, how often have I assured you that you were mistaken;
and that what you regard as disrespect to yourself is the roughness of
an unpolished but sterling nature. The ties which have grown up between
him and me since we were boys together ought not to be snapped for the
sake of a mere misunderstanding; and if you cannot or will not estimate
him for the good qualities he unquestionably possesses, at least bear
with him for my sake."

"So I should, so I strive to do; but the evil does not end there; he
inspires everybody with the same habits of disrespect and indifference.
Did you remark Clements, a few moments since, when I spoke to him about
that cushion?"

"No, I can't say that I did."

"Why should you? nobody ever does trouble his head about anything that
relates to my happiness! Well, I remarked it, and saw the supercilious
smile he assumed when I told him that the pillow was wrong. He looked
over at you, too, as though to say, 'You see how impossible it is to
please her'."

"I certainly saw nothing of that."

"Even Prichard, that formerly was the most diffident of men, is now
so much at his ease, so very much at home in my presence, it is quite
amusing. It was but yesterday he asked me to take wine with him at
dinner. The anachronism was bad enough, but only fancy the liberty!"

"And what did you do?" asked Sir Stafford, with difficulty repres