Colonel Pierson promised to stay a week on his return from Ireland.  “Will that person be here?” he designated Mrs. Chump; who, among other things, had reproached him for fighting with foreign steel and wearing any uniform but the red.

The ladies and Colonel Pierson were soon of one mind in relation to Mrs. Chump.  Certain salient quiet remarks dropped by him were cherished after his departure; they were half-willing to think that he had been directed to come to them, bearer of a message from a heavenly world to urge them to action.  They had need of a spiritual exaltation, to relieve them from the palpable depression caused by the weight of Mrs. Chump.  They encouraged one another with exclamations on the oddness of a visit from their mother’s brother, at such a time of tribulation, indecision, and general darkness.

Mrs. Chump remained on the field.  When Adela begged her papa to tell her how long the lady was to stay, he replied:  “Eh?  By the way, I haven’t asked her;” and retreated from this almost too obvious piece of simplicity, with, “I want you to know her:  I want you to like her—­want you to get to understand her.  Won’t talk about her going just yet.”

If they could have seen a limit to that wholesale slaughter of the Nice Feelings, they might have summoned patience to avoid the desperate step to immediate relief:  but they saw none.  Their father’s quaint kindness and Wilfrid’s treachery had fixed her there, perhaps for good.  The choice was, to let London come and see them dragged through the mire by the monstrous woman, or to seek new homes.  London, they contended, could not further be put off, and would come, especially now that the season was dying.  After all, their parting from one another was the bitterest thing to bear, and as each seemed content to endure it for the good of all, and as, properly considered, they did not bury their ambition by separating, they said farewell to the young delicious dawn of it.  By means of Fine Shades it was understood that Brookfield was to be abandoned.  Not one direct word was uttered.  There were expressions of regret that the village children of Ipley would miss the supervizing eyes that had watched over them—­perchance! at any rate, would lose them.  All went on in the household as before, and would have continued so, but that they had a chief among them.  This was Adela Pole, who found her powers with the occasion.

Adela thought decisively:  “People never move unless they are pushed.”  And when you have got them to move ever so little, then propel; but by no means expect that a movement on their part means progression.  Without propulsion nothing results.  Adela saw what Cornelia meant to do.  It was not to fly to Sir Twickenham, but to dismiss Mr. Barrett.  Arabella consented to write to Edward Buxley, but would not speak of old days, and barely alluded to a misunderstanding; though if she loved one man, this was he.  Adela was disengaged.