struggling to keep under and extinguish a devil of laughter, by which his human weakness was shaken:  He retired from the room with the speed of a voyager about to pay tribute on high seas.  Mr. Pole cast a pregnant look at the servants’ row as he closed the book; but the expression of his daughters’ faces positively signified that no remark was to be made, and he contained himself.  Later, the ladies told him that Gainsford had done no worse than any uneducated man would have been guilty of doing.  Mrs. Chump had, it appeared, a mother’s feeling for one flat curl on her rugged forehead, which was often fondly caressed by her, for the sake of ascertaining its fixity.  Doubts of the precision of outline and general welfare of this curl, apparently, caused her to straighten her back and furtively raise her head, with an easy upward motion, as of a cork alighted in water, above the level of the looking-glass on her left hand—­an action she repeated, with a solemn aspect, four times; at which point Gainsford gave way.  The ladies accorded him every extenuation for the offence.  They themselves, but for the heroism of exalted natures, must have succumbed to the gross temptation.  “It is difficult, dear papa, to bring one’s mind to religious thoughts in her company, even when she is quiescent,” they said.  Thus, by the prettiest exercise of charity that can be conceived, they pleaded for the man Gainsford, while they struck a blow at Mrs. Chump; and in performing one of the virtues laid down by religion, proved their enemy to be hostile to its influences.

Mrs. Chump was this morning very late.  The office of morning reader was new to Mr. Pole, who had undertaken it, when first Squire of Brookfield, at the dictate of the ladies his daughters; so that, waiting with the book before him and his audience expectant, he lacked composure, spoke irritably in an under-breath of ‘that woman,’ and asked twice whether she was coming or not.  At last the clump of her feet was heard approaching.  Mr. Pole commenced reading the instant she opened the door.  She stood there, with a face like a petrified Irish outcry.  An imploring sound of “Pole!  Pole!” issued from her.  Then she caught up one hand to her mouth, and rolled her head, in evident anguish at the necessitated silence.  A convulsion passed along the row of maids, two of whom dipped to their aprons; but the ladies gazed with a sad consciousness of wicked glee at the disgust she was exciting in the bosom of their father.

“Will you shut the door?” Mr. Pole sternly addressed Mrs. Chump, at the conclusion of the first prayer.

“Pole! ye know that money ye gave me in notes?  I must speak, Pole!”

“Shut the door.”