might have said it was the weather, but the weather had never done
it before. Nor could it be want of society, for George Bascombe was
to dine with them. So was the curate, but he did not count for much.
Neither was she weary of herself. That, indeed, might be only a
question of time, for the most complete egotist, Julius Caesar, or
Napoleon Bonaparte, must at length get weary of his paltry self; but
Helen, from the slow rate of her expansion, was not old enough yet.
Nor was she in any special sense wrapt up in herself: it was only
that she had never yet broken the shell which continues to shut in
so many human chickens, long after they imagine themselves citizens
of the real world.

Being somewhat bored then, and dimly aware that to be bored was out
of harmony with something or other, Helen was on the verge of
thinking, but, as I have said, escaped the snare in a very direct
and simple fashion: she went fast asleep, and never woke till her
maid brought her the cup of kitchen-tea from which the inmates of
some houses derive the strength to prepare for dinner.






CHAPTER II.

THOMAS WINGFOLD.