“Will Pole do ut?” ejaculated Mrs. Chump, half off her seat.

“Of course I will—­of course! of course.  Haven’t I told you so?” said Mr. Pole, blinking mightily from his armchair over the fire.  “Sit down, Martha.”

“Oh! but how’ll I understand ye, Pole?” she cried.

“I’ll do my best to assist in explaining,” Wilfrid condescended to say.

The ladies were touched when Mrs. Chump replied, with something of a curtsey, “I’ll thank ye vary much, sir.”  She added immediately, “Mr. Wilfrud,” as if correcting the ‘sir,’ for sounding cold.

It was so trustful and simple, that it threw alight on the woman under which they had not yet beheld her.  Compassion began to stir in their bosoms, and with it an inexplicable sense of shame, which soon threw any power of compassion into the background.  They dared not ask themselves whether it was true that their father had risked the poor thing’s money in some desperate stake.  What hopeful force was left to them they devoted to her property, and Adela determined to pray that night for its safe preservation.  The secret feeling in the hearts of the ladies was, that in putting them on their trial with poverty, Celestial Powers would never at the same time think it necessary to add disgrace.  Consequently, and as a defence against the darker dread, they now, for the first time, fully believed that monetary ruin had befallen their father.  They were civil to Mrs. Chump, and forgiving toward her brogue, and her naked outcries of complaint and suddenly—­suggested panic; but their pity, save when some odd turn in her conduct moved them, was reserved dutifully for their father.  His wretched sensations at the pouring of a storm of tears from the exhausted creature, caused Arabella to rise and say to Mrs. Chump kindly, “Now let me take you to bed.”

But such a novel mark of tender civility caused the woman to exclaim:  “Oh, dear! if ye don’t sound like wheedlin’ to keep me blind.”

Even this was borne with.  “Come; it will do you good to rest,” said Arabella.

“And how’ll I sleep?”

“By shutting my eye—­peeps,”—­as I used to tell my old nurse,” said Adela; and Mrs. Chump, accustomed to an occasional (though not public) bit of wheedling from her, was partially reassured.

“I’ll sit with you till you do sleep,” said Arabella.

“Suppose,” Mrs. Chump moaned, “suppose I’m too poor aver to repay ye?  If I’m a bankrup’?—­oh!”

Arabella smiled.  “Whatever I may do is certainly not done for a remuneration, and such a service as this, at least, you need not speak of.”

Mrs. Chump’s evident surprise, and doubt of the honesty of the change in her manner, caused Arabella very acutely to feel its dishonesty.  She looked at Cornelia with envy.  The latter lady was leaning meditatively, her arm on a side of her chair, like a pensive queen, with a ready, mild, embracing look for the company.  ‘Posture’ seemed always to triumph over action.