you have not been to Stornley twice without experiencing the truth of our
old discovery, that the Poles are magnetic? Why should we conceal it
from ourselves, if it be so? I think it a folly, and fraught with
danger, for people not to know their characteristics. If they attract,
they should keep in a circle where they will have no reason to revolt at,
or say, repent of what they attract. My argumentative sister does not
coincide. If she did, she would lose her argument.

"Adieu! Such is my dulness, I doubt whether I have made my meaning
clear.

"Your thrice affectionate

"Adela.

"P.S.--Lady Gosstre has just taken Emilia to Richford for a week. Papa
starts for Bidport to-morrow."

This short and rather blunt exercise in Fine Shades was read impatiently
by Wilfrid. "Why doesn't she write plain to the sense?" he asked, with
the usual injustice of men, who demand a statement of facts, forgetting
how few there are to feed the post; and that indication and suggestion
are the only language for the multitude of facts unborn and possible.
Twilight best shows to the eye what may be.

"I suppose I must go down there," he said to himself, keeping a
meditative watch on the postscript, as if it possessed the capability of
slipping away and deceiving him. "Does she mean that Cornelia sees too
much of this man Barrett? or, what does she mean?" And now he saw
meanings in the simple passages, and none at all in the intricate ones;