6'6 A PU NIC. 



all the keenness of deep dislike, and vowed the discomfiture of 

 her. My own conscience had been seared from the moment at 

 which I heard her confess the countless meannesses she had 

 been guilty of, aggravated, perhaps, in my estimation, by the 

 seduction she had practised upon tlie virtue of my confidential 

 Swiss, and by the punishment she had inflicted upon my vice of 

 listening, and I now resolved upon setting my wits fairly against 

 hers. Fairly, did I say ? — No ! By all means, fair, and the 

 reverse. To abet in whatever could annoy and expose her ; to 

 listen and peep wherever an occasion should present itself, and 

 even to betray her without ruth or remorse, should it ever happen 

 to suit my convenience. It is astonishing to one who has ever 

 made it his amiable occupation, how short a time will acquaint 

 one with all the whites and blacks of a vain and ambitious heart, 

 and with the game which skilful players, who have a stake in it, 

 may play, for their own advantage or amusement, on that che- 

 quered board. Vain and ambitious was the heart of Mrs. 

 Allington, and a verj- few days' private practice enabled me to 

 thoroughly dissect, anatomize, and lecture upon, it. Thought, 

 design, suspicion, all, all were laid bare to me, before she, in 

 whom they rose, sunk, and rankled, was aware of even their 

 existence. I had little leisure to speculate upon the acts of the rest 

 of the family, or to resolve them to their hidden motives. Yet I 

 was angry with Adelaide. Her heart had suddenly become to 

 me a sealed book ; and (hang it !) as is the case with many wiser 

 men in greater affairs, I mystified myself by looking too deep for 

 what I have since had reason to believe lay very much on the 

 surface. She seemed to allow herself to be played upon in ways 

 which to me, who knew her good sense, and, above all, who 

 knew her large share of that on which all good sense is founded, 

 good feeling, were quite unintelligible. Her good humour was 

 impenetrable. She smiled without distinction or measure on all 

 the world; even on young Lord D. But I was absolutely mad 

 with honest John. There he sat in his great leathern chair, with 

 his younger children crowding round him and climbing over him, 

 amusing himself with their babble, and seemingly deaf and blind 

 16 all the politics of his indefatigable wife, and of Lord D., who 

 flirted with his daughter before his very face, and of the widow 

 Eglantine, who came every day to dinner. A stranger, who 

 knew nothing about it, would have said, " How Mr. Allington 

 does enjoy Mrs. Allington's preparations for one of her delightful 

 pic nics ! " 



