In the morning the lovers set off for London, Dr Norberry having preceded them by a few hours. This blunt but benevolent man had returned the evening before slowly and pensively to his lodgings, his heart full of pity for the errors of the well-meaning enthusiasts whom he had left, and his head full of plans for their assistance, or rather for that of Adeline. But he entered his own doors again reluctantly--he knew but too well that no sympathy with his feelings awaited him there. His wife, a woman of narrow capacity and no talents or accomplishments, had, like all women of that sort, a great aversion to those of her sex who united to feminine graces and gentleness, the charms of a cultivated understanding and pretensions to accomplishments or literature. Of Mrs Mowbray, as we have before observed, she had always been peculiarly jealous, because Dr Norberry spoke of her knowledge with wonder, and of her understanding with admiration; not that he entertained one moment a feeling of preference towards her, inconsistent with an almost idolatrous love of his wife, whose skill in all the domestic duties, and whose very pretty face and person, were the daily themes of his praise. But Mrs Norberry wished to engross all his panegyrics to herself, and she never failed to expatiate on Mrs Mowbray's foibles and flightiness as long as the doctor had expatiated on her charms. Sometimes, indeed, this last subject was sooner exhausted than the one which she had chosen; but when Adeline grew up, and became as it were the rival of her daughters in the praises of her husband, she found it difficult as we have said before, to bring faults in array against excellencies. Mrs Norberry could with propriety observe, when the doctor, was exclaiming, 'What a charming essay Mrs Mowbray has just written!' 'Aye,--but I dare say she can't write a market bill.' When he said, 'How well she comprehends the component parts of the animal system!' She could with great justice reply, 'But she knows nothing of the component parts of a plum pudding.' But when Adeline became the object of the husband's admiration and the wife's enmity, Mrs Norberry could not make these pertinent remarks, as Adeline was as conversant with all branches of housewifery as herself; and, though as learned in all systems as her mother, was equally learned in the component parts of puddings and pies. She was therefore at a loss what to say when Adeline was praised by the doctor; and all she could observe on the occasion was, that the girl might be clever, but was certainly very ugly, very affected, and very conceited. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that Mrs Mowbray's degrading and unhappy marriage, and Adeline's elopement, should have been sources of triumph to Mrs Norberry and her daughters; who, though they liked Mrs Mowbray very well, could not bear Adeline.