And she had to encounter these things to a
great extent alone. It was seldom that Gilbert
could be by to help her. When he was there
he always took her part, and kept the enemy in
order, but at other times she suffered much.

They were two to one against her, for Miss
Carrington's aide-de-camp, the faithful Cantanker,
was always on the spot and ready to
back her mistress up on all occasions, and, in so
far as opportunity served, to put our poor young
housewife down. She would always address
her—and she never did so except when absolutely
obliged—as "Mrs. Penmore," never
using the generally inevitable term, " ma'am,"
or even " mum." By this means she avoided
any expression of allegiance, and retained that
dignity which was so dear to her, at the same
time that she ignored all claim on the part of
the young lady to be the mistress of the house.
It was well and skilfully done.

All the unpleasant messages, too, came
through, the Cantanker medium, and certainly
lost nothing by being entrusted to her for
delivery. " My mistress," she would say,
appearing at breakfast-time, and, as her habit was,
closing the door behind her before she began to
speak, "my mistress will take her breakfast
up-stairs, Mrs. Penmore, and, she was wishful for
me to say that she would feel especially obligated
if the tea could be sent up warm, as yesterday
it was but stone cold." It was not very unusual
for Miss Carrington to take her meals, and breakfast
especially, in her own room, and those were
days of jubilee for our young couple when she
did so, as they were free from her company,
and that of her amiable attendant. This last
was almost sure, however, to appear in the
course of the meal with some message about the
coldness of the tea or the toughness of the toast,
or perhaps, if lunch rather than breakfast was
in hand, she would meekly request that the
broth " might not have its surface covered with
circles of grease floating about on the top like
islands." Miss Cantanker was too well pleased
when a spiteful simile came to her aid to inquire
whether the image was a correct one, or she
might perhaps have hesitated at the idea of floating
islands and changed the metaphor to ships.

Miss Carrington seemed determined to lose
no opportunity of showing her disapproval of
poor Gabrielle, and her wish to hold an
intercourse  with Gilbert, from which his wife should
be excluded. She would send down messages
to him to the effect that " she was expecting a
few friends that evening, and she had no gentleman
to  meet Captain Scraper, and would he
come up and join the party?" or she had got two
orders for the opera, could he make it convenient
to escort her? "It would be so nice," she
would write on a slip of paper. Or would he
come up and play a game of piquet, she felt so
very dull. Or she had a matter of business to
consult him about, could he manage to " step"
up-stairs for half a minute?

No doubt she had got hold of the wrong
person in Gilbert Penmore. Not only had he
a powerfully developed antipathy towards the
lady herself, and a very strong objection to finding
himself  in her society, but he felt very
keenly the intentional slights, which, by every
one of her acts, was being put upon his dear
Gabrielle. And this was touching him upon a
tender point indeed. With every day that
passed it seemed as if the love between these
two increased. No slight that was offered to
her, no repulse that met his efforts to get on,
but seemed to bind them more and more
together, and to invest each with nobler
qualities in the other's eyes.

Over and over again would Gilbert insist on
bringing the thing to an end, and giving his
cousin warning, come of it what might, and it
was only the entreaties and tears even of his
wife that prevailed with him to let it go on a
little longer. A little longer, she said, and then
he would get to be acknowledged, and would be
a great man, and then they would take a new
house, and become quite distinguished characters.
Meanwhile, he must be patient and put up with
Miss Carrington's provocations, and not suppose
that she minded them in the least. And she
would even press him sometimes— but not very
much— to do what his cousin asked of him, to
go and give her the benefit of his advice in
business matters, or even to escort her to the
play. But here, even she could not prevail.
Her husband was adamant. He compromised
the matter by promising that he would not give
her warning, but his invariable answers to all
Miss Carrington's overtures was, that he was
"much too busy" to accept them.

Our lives are made up of small things, and I
cannot develop the tale which I have got to tell
without dwelling on a multitude of matters
which appear to be small, but which, when
combined, make a large aggregate. It is my
present business to show how this young couple
were aggravated, past endurance almost, by the
vagaries of a spiteful and tiresome woman, and
a foolish person into the bargain, which, perhaps,
was the worst part of it all.

There was indeed, as the saying goes, no
knowing where to have this vexatious lady.
She was always complaining how dull she was,
but she would accept no alleviation of her
dulness. If they sent her up some book or
periodical in the wish to amuse her, she was sure
to send it down again with an intimation that it
was trash, and that she could not read it. If a
friend came in the evening, and our young
couple, thinking a change might enliven her,
sent to invite her to spend the evening, she
would either decline to come at all, or coming,
would make herself profoundly disagreeable,
retaining a forced gravity when others were
disposed towards merriment, and setting herself
in an unmistakable manner against the
unfortunate friend, whoever he might happen to be,
contradicting every word that dropped from his
lips, generally insulting him grossly, and altogether
throwing a wet blanket over the little party.

Or perhaps something might be attempted in
the way of a visit to some public place of enter-
tainment. On one occasion Mr. Lethwaite—