material towards contributing to her child's recovery, still she made it
a point of duty to be as nervous as possible at the castle of Grogzwig,
and to divide her time between moral observations on the baron's
housekeeping, and bewailing the hard lot of her unhappy daughter. And if
the Baron of Grogzwig, a little hurt and irritated at this, took heart,
and ventured to suggest that his wife was at least no worse off than the
wives of other barons, the Baroness Von Swillenhausen begged all
persons to take notice, that nobody but she, sympathised with her dear
daughter's sufferings; upon which, her relations and friends remarked,
that to be sure she did cry a great deal more than her son-in-law, and
that if there were a hard-hearted brute alive, it was that Baron of
Grogzwig.

'The poor baron bore it all as long as he could, and when he could bear
it no longer lost his appetite and his spirits, and sat himself gloomily
and dejectedly down. But there were worse troubles yet in store for
him, and as they came on, his melancholy and sadness increased. Times
changed. He got into debt. The Grogzwig coffers ran low, though the
Swillenhausen family had looked upon them as inexhaustible; and just
when the baroness was on the point of making a thirteenth addition to
the family pedigree, Von Koeldwethout discovered that he had no means of
replenishing them.

'"I don't see what is to be done," said the baron. "I think I'll kill
myself."

'This was a bright idea. The baron took an old hunting-knife from a
cupboard hard by, and having sharpened it on his boot, made what boys
call "an offer" at his throat.