I expected it to flag altogether, I had a whim to order champagne
and observe the effect; but I am glad to say that I reproved myself,
and refrained.

Cecily, meanwhile, was conducting herself in a manner which left
nothing to be desired. If, as I sometimes thought, she took Dacres
very much for granted, she took him calmly for granted; she seemed a
prey to none of those fluttering uncertainties, those suspended
judgments and elaborate indifferences which translate themselves so
plainly in a young lady receiving addresses. She turned herself out
very freshly and very well; she was always ready for everything, and
I am sure that no glance of Dacres Tottenham's found aught but
direct and decorous response. His society on these occasions gave
her solid pleasure; so did the drive and the lunch; the
satisfactions were apparently upon the same plane. She was aware of
the plum, if I may be permitted a brusque but irresistible simile;
and with her mouth open, her eyes modestly closed, and her head in a
convenient position, she waited, placidly, until it should fall in.
The Farnham ladies would have been delighted with the result of
their labours in the sweet reason and eminent propriety of this
attitude. Thinking of my idiotic sufferings when John began to fix
himself upon my horizon, I pondered profoundly the power of nature
in differentiation.

One evening, the last, I think, but one, I had occasion to go to my
daughter's room, and found her writing in her commonplace-book. She
had a commonplace-book, as well as a Where Is It? an engagement-
book, an account-book, a diary, a Daily Sunshine, and others with
purposes too various to remember. 'Dearest mamma,' she said, as I
was departing, 'there is only one "p" in "opulence", isn't there?'