that had nothing tangible, and against a person
whom it was impossible to excite or bring to
bay.

"I think you would be better in a house of
your own," she used to say about once a day,
as her sole answer to Mrs. Grantley's stately
representations that on such and such an
occasion —- contradicting her flatly at table, refusing
her the carriage, rescinding her orders, or the
like—- she had acted unbecomingly, and without
due regard to her (Mrs. Grantley's) position.
And at last, by force of her unceasing insults,
always very quietly given, she shouldered out
the elder lady and forced her to go. There
was no quarrel, no tumult, no scandal. Mrs.
Grantley's pride could no longer submit; and
she went.

"I think she is best gone," said Annie,
imperturbably, when the last shred belonging to
the former mistress had disappeared from the
Hall. Then she went to pore over the aquarium,
and teaze her chameleon; for she had a
kind of sympathy with all bloodless creatures,
and was great in a shallow kind of scientific
play: trying her hand at photography, modelling,
and various unexciting amusements; but
especially given up to her water world.

What she did with Mrs. Grantley she did also
with the visitors to the Hall. Those whom she
did not like, took care not to call again. She
did nothing overt; said nothing that could be
repeated as personally insolent; but was
altogether so disagreeable, that those whom she did
not affect left the house irreconcilably offended,
and never entered it a second time. The only
one who stood out against her was Mr. Clarke
Jones, the country lawyer, who lived on the edge
of the great world of the county, and appeared
at the Assize ball as May Sefton's distant
admirer. Laurence used to give this person an
occasional dirty job to do, and Jones prized
his slender footing in the Hall too much to
relinquish it, cost what it would in self-respect to
retain. His skin was as thick as a rhinoceros's
hide; to all Mrs. Laurence's undefined
insults he opposed a callous impudence that would
not be abashed, a vulgar self-complacency that
would not be ruffled. "He gave her back as
good as she brought," he used to say; and not
without truth. It was the file and the granite;
and the granite had the best of it.

Thus, whether she liked it or not, she had to
endure his visits, and somehow Mr. Clarke Jones
managed to make them tolerably frequent:
perpetually coming up to the Hall with small bits of
local information, which " he thought it right Mr.
Grantley should know." Laurence suffered him
to prowl about in this manner, partly because he
was sometimes useful, and partly because he
understood the secret antagonism going on, and
was not sorry to see his wife foiled at her own
game.

If the bull-necked, insolent country lawyer
were Annie's sore point, the settlements, and
a loan which Laurence wanted to raise on
her security, were his. Annie would not do him
this service. " I married to be mistress of the
Hall, not to be a beggar," she used to say; " so
you need not ask, for I never will."

As yet, Laurence had not got much good out
of his marriage. True, there was the will, drawn
up in his favour and leaving him absolute
possession after death, which, with much trouble
and bitterness on both sides, Laurence had
induced her to sign. But he had no great
satisfaction in this, for whenever he vexed Annie—-
and she was always being vexed —- she threatened
to revoke it, and " leave him the ruined spendthrift
she found him." In short, she led him a
sad life about this same will; and, indeed, about
everything else; and made the sin of his
mercenary marriage bring its own punishment with
it, and that speedily. And all this time she
kept, carefully locked up in a secret drawer,
another and a later will, duly signed and attested,
which left all she had, to a certain Mrs. Jane
Gilbert, of Eagley, in another county, "in
reparation of the wrong done her." So Annie
had immense satisfaction in her dealings with
her husband, whom she annoyed by an appearance,
and deceived by a reality.

She had had this second and secret will drawn
up immediately on her signing the first; and
when she had become perfectly aware why
she had been married. For Laurence, though
generally careless and good-natured enough with
her: respecting her for her "good family" —- which
sense of good family was his great weakness—- if
not loving her for her person, had once unfortunately
lost his temper and common sense, and
had told her, in clear, sharp, incisive terms, that.
he had never loved her; that he had married her
solely for her money; that he cursed the day he
ever met her, and wished he or she had died at
the church door. Annie treasured up all these
wild words, carefully, and registered a vow that
never, from that day, should a farthing of her
money flow into the Grantley coffers, and that,
come what might, she would be revenged. So
wretched Laurence was no better off than if
he had married dear May —- loving, beautiful
May—- and her paltry thousand pounds.

"Would that I had!" he groaned in despair.
"Would that I had dared to be brave and true
—- to face my position and claim May's happy
love!"

The Eleventh Journey of
THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELLER,
A SERIES OF OCCASIONAL JOURNEYS,
BY CHARLES DICKENS,
Will appear in No. 62.