whenever her influence seemed likely to
assist in backing her mistress up. This was
one of the things which Penmore found the
most difficult to endure of all. His detestation
for Jane Cantanker was something ferocious,
and hardly to be concealed. He said it took
his appetite away to see her standing there
behind her mistress's chair watching everything
and listening to everything, with her mistress
appealing to her continually, and seeming to
receive every word she said as if it fell from the
lips of an oracle.

"I've had a gentleman visitor to-day," said
Miss Carrington one day at dinner-time, and
speaking with an infernal and aggravating
sprightliness. " Haven't I, Cantanker?"

"Yes, miss," replied the lady, slowly and sententiously,
"a terew gentleman."

It is impossible to say how it was done, but
it is certain that Miss Cantanker managed to
convey in these words the impression that Gilbert
was not a " terew gentleman."

"I thought I heard a heavier footstep than
usual on the stairs," remarked Gabrielle, who
was always ready to talk on any subject that
promised peacefully.

"What sharp ears you have," retorted Miss
Carrington; and then with restored cheerfulness,
"and a military gentleman, too — wasn't he,
Jane?"

"Capting Shaver, 'alf-pay," replied Cantanker,
in the same solemn tone, " and a terew gentleman."

"He's withdrawn from the service," continued
Miss Carrington, " and has made quite
a study of health and medicine, and that sort of
thing, and is really an authority. And be tells
me that the aspect of my room is all wrong,
and that I can never be well unless I am fronting the sun."

"I am afraid, as the house isn't upon castors,
that we can't turn it round to the south, even
to please Captain Shaver." This was the remark
of Mr. Penmore, who, if the truth must be
owned, was disposed to be rather rude to his
cousin at times. But then was there not cause,
and was not the presence of Cantanker enough
in itself to justify a small amount of incivility?
"There's your bedroom has the morning sun
upon it. You might make that your sitting-room,
and use the other for a bedroom."

"Ah, but Captain Shaver says that a sunny
aspect for one's bedroom is even more important
than for one's sitting-room. Doesn't he,
Cantanker?"

"That was his remark, miss," replied the
domestic.

Gilbert, in confidence to his plate, expressed
a wish that Captain Shaver might be somethinged.
Aloud he intimated that that made it
very difficult, certainly.

"If you please, miss," remarked Cantanker,
"there was likeways something which the gentleman
observed with regard to the position which
should be occupied by the bed of any one who
was wishful to enjoy repose. Something about
the pole — the curtain-pole, was it?"

"Oh yes, of course there was, Cantanker, but
it wasn't the curtain-pole, it was the North
Pole. Gilbert, Captain Shaver says that it is
impossible to be in good health unless your bed
lies along the line of the polar current, running
north and south. And tnen he got out a little
compass, and I showed him, by means of the
sofa, how my bed was placed (for of course I
was not going to admit him to my bedroom),
and then he got himself in line with the sofa,
and he consulted his compass, and then he cried
out, turning quite pale as he spoke, ' Why, bless
my heart, Miss Carrington, the article of furniture — '
he was too delicate to call it a
bed — "

"A terew gentleman," remarked Cantanker,
sotto voce.

"'The article of furniture under discussion,'
he said, ' lies in a direct line east and west. I
wonder, Miss Carrington, that you are alive.'
That's what he said. His very words, weren't
they, Cantanker?"

"Yes, miss, he said he wondered you was
alive."

"Now, Gilbert, what's to be done?" asked
the lady, as if she believed that another night
of it would kill her.

"I should think that nothing was easier than
to turn the ' article of furniture,' as your friend
calls it, round at a right angle, but I must
remind you that these are matters out of my
province."

"Ah," said Miss Carrington, coldly.

"If you'll explain what you want to me, I
will try to set it right," said poor Gabrielle.
"But I do wish," she added, with pardonable
irritability, " that you would apply to me about
such things, and not to my husband."

Madame Cantanker made a note of these
words, fixing her eyes on Gabrielle with a deadly
venom. Meanwhile, Miss Carrington remarked
that " She really couldn't stop to consider every
word, and to whom it ought to be addressed."

That night, when the young couple were
alone, Gilbert cried out, in the bitterness of his
spirit, " This cannot go on — that woman must
be got rid of."

But they were hardly alone, for Jane Can-
tanker was listening at the door. She heard a
good deal that night. She heard Mrs. Penmore
say, " Oh, Gilbert, she is so spiteful, and she
says such bitter things on purpose. She makes
me feel so wicked, almost as if I could kill her
sometimes," and she heard her burst out sobbing
and crying. These things Madame Cautanker
heard, but she did not hear — because she got
tired of waiting — how, half an hour afterwards,
Gabrielle said to her husband, " Oh, Gilbert, I
didn't mean that I really was angry with her,
and I wouldn't hurt a hair of head, and you
know that, don't you? It's not much to bear,
is it?"

It was one of Miss Carrington's peculiarities
that she was extremely variable, and so different
at different times, that, to use a familiar phrase,
"there was no knowing where to have her."