mistress, as in duty bound, just as I had put it
to myself.

"I have been turning Selina Goby over in
my mind," I said, "and I think, my lady, it
will be cheaper to marry her than to keep her."

My lady burst out laughing, and said she
didn't know which to be most shocked at—my
language or my principles. Some joke tickled
her, I suppose, of the sort that you can't take
unless you are a person of quality.
Understanding nothing myself but that I was free
to put it next to Selina, I went and put it
accordingly. And what did Selina say? Lord!
how little you must know of women, if you
ask that. Of course she said Yes.

As my time drew nearer, and there got to be
talk of my having a new coat for the ceremony,
my mind began to misgive me. I have compared
notes with other men as to what they felt
while they were in my interesting situation;
and they have all acknowledged that, about a
week before it happened, they privately wished
themselves out of it. I went a trifle further
than that myself; I actually rose up, as it were,
and tried to get out of it. Not for nothing!
I was too just a man to expect she would
let me off for nothing. Compensation to the
woman when the man gets out of it, is one
of the laws of England. In obedience to the
laws, and after turning it over carefully in my
mind, I offered Selina Goby a feather bed and
fifty shillings to be off the bargain. You will
hardly believe it, but it is nevertheless true—
she was fool enough to refuse.

After that it was all over with me, of course.
I got the new coat as cheap as I could, and
I went through all the rest of it as cheap as I
could. "We were not a happy couple, and not
a miserable couple. We were six of one and
half a dozen of the other. How it was I don't
understand, but we always seemed to be getting,
with the best of motives, in one another's way.
When I wanted to go up-stairs, there was my
wife coming down; or when my wife wanted to
go down, there was I coming up. That is
married life, according to my experience of it.

After five years of misunderstandings on the
stairs, it pleased an all-wise Providence to
relieve us of each other by taking my wife. I
was left with my little girl Penelope, and with
no other child. Shortly afterwards Sir John
died, and my lady was left with her little girl
Miss Rachel, and no other child. I have written
to very poor purpose of my lady, if you require
to be told that my little Penelope was taken
care of, under my good mistress's own eye, and
was sent to school, and taught, and made a
sharp girl, and promoted, when old enough, to
be Miss Rachel's own maid.

As for me, I went on with my business as
bailiff year after year up to Christmas, 1847,
when there came a change in my life. On that
day, my lady invited herself to a cup of tea alone
with me in my cottage. She remarked that,
reckoning from the year when I started as pageboy
in the time of the old lord, I had been more
than fifty years in her service, and she put into
my hands a beautiful waistcoat of wool that she
had worked herself, to keep me warm in the
bitter winter weather.

I received this magnificent present quite at a
loss to find words to thank my mistress with
for the honour she had done me. To my great
astonishment, it turned out, however, that the
waistcoat was not an honour, but a bribe. My
lady had discovered that I was getting old
before I had discovered it myself, and she
had come to my cottage to wheedle me (if I
may use such an expression) into giving up
my hard out-of-door work as bailiff, and taking
my ease for the rest of my days as steward in
the house. I made as good a fight of it against
the indignity of taking my ease as I could.
But my mistress knew the weak side of me;
she put it as a favour to herself. The dispute
between us ended, after that, in my wiping my
eyes, like an old fool, with my new woollen
waistcoat, and saying I would think about it.

The perturbation in my mind, in regard to
thinking about it, being truly dreadful after my
lady had gone away, I applied the remedy which
I have never yet found to fail me in cases of
doubt and emergency. I smoked a pipe and
took a turn at Robinson Crusoe. Before I had
occupied myself with that extraordinary book
five minutes, I came on a comforting bit (page
one hundred and fifty-eight), as follows:
"Today we love, what to-morrow we hate." I saw
my way clear directly. To-day I was all for
continuing to be farm-bailiff; to-morrow, on the
authority of Robinson Crusoe, I should be all
the other way. Take myself to-morrow while
in to-morrow's humour, and the thing was done.
My mind being relieved in this manner, I went
to sleep that night in the character of Lady
Verinder's farm-bailiff, and I woke up the next
morning in the character of Lady Verinder's
house-steward. All quite comfortable, and all
through Robinson Crusoe!

My daughter Penelope has just looked over
my shoulder to see what I have done so far.
She remarks that it is beautifully written, and
every word of it true. But she points out one
objection. She says what I have done so far
isn't in the least what I was wanted to do. I
am asked to tell the story of the Diamond, and,
instead of that, I have been telling the story of
my own self. Curious, and quite beyond me to
account for. I wonder whether the gentlemen
who make a business and a living out of writing
books ever find their own selves getting in the
way of their subjects, like me? If they do, I
can feel for them. In the mean time, here is
another false start. What's to be done now?
Nothing that I know of, except for you to keep
your temper, and for me to begin it all over
again for the third time.

                CHAPTER III

THE question of how I am to start the story
properly I have tried to settle in two ways.
First, by scratching my head, which led to
nothing. Second, by consulting my daughter
Penelope, which has resulted in an entirely new idea.

Penelope's notion is that I should set down