candle shared its fate.  She had to find her way back in the dark.  On the landing of the stairs, she fancied that she heard a step and a breath.  The lady was of unshaken nerves.  She moved on steadily, her hand stretched out a little before her.  What it touched was long in travelling to her brain; but when her paralyzed heart beat again, she knew that her hand clasped another hand.  Her nervous horror calmed as the feeling came to her of the palpable weakness of the hand.

“Who are you?” she asked.  Some hoarse answer struck her ear.  She asked again, making her voice distincter.  The hand now returned her pressure with force.  She could feel that the person, whoever it was, stood collecting strength to speak.  Then the words came—­

“What do you mean by imitating that woman’s brogue?”

“Papa!” said Cornelia.

“Why do you talk Irish in the dark?  There, goodnight.  I’ve just come up from the library; my candle dropped.  I shouldn’t have been frightened, but you talked with such a twang.”

“But I have just come from the library myself,” said Cornelia.

“I mean from the dining-room,” her father corrected himself hastily.  “I can’t sit in the library; shall have it altered—­full of draughts.  Don’t you think so, my dear?  Good-night.  What’s this in your arm?  Books!  Ah, you study!  I can get a light for myself.”

The dialogue was sustained in the hard-whispered tones prescribed by darkness.  Cornelia kissed her father’s forehead, and they parted.

At breakfast in the morning it was the habit of all the ladies to assemble, partly to countenance the decency of matin-prayers, and also to give the head of the household their dutiful society till business called him away.  Adela, in earlier days, had maintained that early rising was not fashionable; but she soon grasped the idea that a great rivalry with Fashion, in minor matters (where the support of the satirist might be counted on), was the proper policy of Brookfield.  Mrs. Chump was given to be extremely fashionable in her hours, and began her Brookfield career by coming downstairs at ten and eleven o’clock, when she found a desolate table, well stocked indeed, but without any of the exuberant smiles of nourishment which a morning repast should wear.

“You are a Protestant, ma’am, are you not?” Adela mildly questioned, after informing her that she missed family prayer by her late descent.  Mrs. Chump assured her that she was a firm Protestant, and liked to see faces at the breakfast-table.  The poor woman was reduced to submit to the rigour of the hour, coming down flustered, and endeavouring to look devout, while many uncertainties as to the condition of the hooks of her attire distracted her mind and fingers.  On one occasion, Gainsford, the footman, had been seen with his eye on her; and while Mr. Pole read of sacred things, at a pace composed of slow march and amble, this unhappy man was heard