I have always been sure that Cornelia was born for Parliament, and he will be lucky if he wins her.  We know not yet, of course, what her decision will be.  The incident is chiefly remarkable to us as a relief to what I need not recount to you.  But I wish to say one thing, dear Wilfrid.  You are gazetted to a lieutenancy, and we congratulate you:  but what I have to say is apparently much more trifling, and it is, that—­will you take it to heart?—­it would do Arabella and myself infinite good if we saw a little more of our brother, and just a little less of a very gentlemanly organ-player phenomenon, who talks so exceedingly well.  He is a very pleasant man, and appreciates our ideas, and so forth; but it is our duty to love our brother best, and think of him foremost, and we wish him to come and remind us of our duty.

“At our Cornelia’s request, with our concurrence, papa is silent in the house as to the purport of the communication made by Sir T.P.

“By the way, are you at all conscious of a sound-like absurdity in a Christian name of three syllables preceding a surname of one?  Sir Twickenham Pryme!  Cornelia’s pronunciation of the name first gave me the feeling.  The ‘Twickenham’ seems to perform a sort of educated monkey kind of ridiculously decorous pirouette and entrechat before the ‘Pryme.’  I think that Cornelia feels it also.  You seem to fancy elastic limbs bending to the measure of a solemn church-organ.  Sir Timothy?  But Sir Timothy does not jump with the same grave agility as Sir Twickenham!  If she rejects him, it will be half attributable to this.

“My own brother!  I expect no confidences, but a whisper warns me that you have not been to Stornley twice without experiencing the truth of our old discovery, that the Poles are magnetic?  Why should we conceal it from ourselves, if it be so?  I think it a folly, and fraught with danger, for people not to know their characteristics.  If they attract, they should keep in a circle where they will have no reason to revolt at, or say, repent of what they attract.  My argumentative sister does not coincide.  If she did, she would lose her argument.

“Adieu!  Such is my dulness, I doubt whether I have made my meaning clear.

          “Your thrice affectionate

“Adela.

“P.S.—­Lady Gosstre has just taken Emilia to Richford for a week.  Papa starts for Bidport to-morrow.”

This short and rather blunt exercise in Fine Shades was read impatiently by Wilfrid.  “Why doesn’t she write plain to the sense?” he asked, with the usual injustice of men, who demand a statement of facts, forgetting how few there are to feed the post; and that indication and suggestion are the only language for the multitude of facts unborn and possible.  Twilight best shows to the eye what may be.