As this was the case, and no human ingenuity could soften the fact, Mrs. Aiken only said: "I know it's very troublesome." To which Miss Priscilla replied: "Nothing is troublesome, so long as you only say distinctly. Now, do you want anything to eat? Because dinner is taken away." Reviving decision, after sleep, became emphatic. Self-respect called for self-assertion. Mrs. Aiken shuffled. She wasn't hungry, she said. "Have you _had_ dinner? Because if you have not had dinner, you must have dinner. Ring the bell twice, and Pemphridge will come." Pemphridge came, and could warm the chicken. Pemphridge did warm the chicken, and Mrs. Aiken hardly touched it. After which she returned, looking extremely miserable, to her aunt in the drawing-room, who said majestically: "And now perhaps, Euphemia, you will tell me what all this means." "It's Reginald," said Euphemia. "I am not surprised," said her aunt. "But you don't _know_ yet." "I know nothing whatever. But I am not surprised. Is it reasonable, Euphemia, to expect me to be surprised? After what I have so frequently had occasion to say. But I am quite prepared to hear that I have said no such thing. Pray tell me anything you like. I will not contradict you." Aunt Priscilla assumed a rigid continuousness, as of one who forms to receive aspersions. Truth will triumph in the end; meanwhile there is no harm in portending that triumph by an aggressive stony patience. "Only you don't know what it is, Aunt Prissy," said her niece. No more she did, speaking academically. She was, however, quite prepared for every contingency. "I do not think _you_ are the person to say that to me, Euphemia, seeing that you have told me nothing--absolutely nothing! But I can wait." She waited. As she lay face upwards on the sofa--the nearest approach to an Early Victorian recumbent effigy that the Nature of Things permits--she presented the appearance of a deserving person floating on her back in a sea of exasperation. Unless this image justifies itself, it must be condemned. Nothing in literature can excuse it. Mrs. Euphemia was so used to her aunt, with whom she had lived since the death of her parents fifteen years since, that she knew she might never get a better moment than this for telling the story of her passage of arms with her husband. She therefore embarked on a narrative of the events we know, and contrived to get them told, in spite of interruptions, the nature of which, after the foregoing sample of Aunt Priscilla, we can surmise. Neither need be repeated.