by coming downstairs at ten and eleven o'clock, when she found a desolate
table, well stocked indeed, but without any of the exuberant smiles of
nourishment which a morning repast should wear.

"You are a Protestant, ma'am, are you not?" Adela mildly questioned,
after informing her that she missed family prayer by her late descent.
Mrs. Chump assured her that she was a firm Protestant, and liked to see
faces at the breakfast-table. The poor woman was reduced to submit to
the rigour of the hour, coming down flustered, and endeavouring to look
devout, while many uncertainties as to the condition of the hooks of her
attire distracted her mind and fingers. On one occasion, Gainsford, the
footman, had been seen with his eye on her; and while Mr. Pole read of
sacred things, at a pace composed of slow march and amble, this unhappy
man was heard struggling to keep under and extinguish a devil of
laughter, by which his human weakness was shaken: He retired from the
room with the speed of a voyager about to pay tribute on high seas. Mr.
Pole cast a pregnant look at the servants' row as he closed the book; but
the expression of his daughters' faces positively signified that no
remark was to be made, and he contained himself. Later, the ladies told
him that Gainsford had done no worse than any uneducated man would have
been guilty of doing. Mrs. Chump had, it appeared, a mother's feeling
for one flat curl on her rugged forehead, which was often fondly caressed
by her, for the sake of ascertaining its fixity. Doubts of the precision
of outline and general welfare of this curl, apparently, caused her to
straighten her back and furtively raise her head, with an easy upward
motion, as of a cork alighted in water, above the level of the looking-
glass on her left hand--an action she repeated, with a solemn aspect,
four times; at which point Gainsford gave way. The ladies accorded him
every extenuation for the offence. They themselves, but for the heroism
of exalted natures, must have succumbed to the gross temptation. "It is