This was the first confession which Charlotte Halliday made of a sense of weakness and languor that had been creeping upon her during the last two months, so slowly, so gradually, that the change seemed too insignificant for notice. "You feel ill, Lotta dear?" Diana asked. "Well, no, not exactly ill. I can scarcely call it illness; I feel rather weak--that is really all." At this point Mrs. Sheldon chimed in, with her eyes on a passing bonnet as she spoke. "You see, you are so dreadfully neglectful of your papa's advice, Lotta," she said, in a complaining tone. "Do _you_ like pink roses with mauve areophane, Diana? I do not. Look at that primrose tulle, with dead ivy-leaves and scarlet berries, in the barouche. I dare say you have not taken your glass of old port this morning, Charlotte, and have only yourself to thank if you feel weak." "I did take a glass of port this morning, mamma. I don't like it; but I take it every morning." "Don't like old tawny port, that your papa bought at the sale of a bishop of somewhere? It's perfectly absurd of you, Lotta, to talk of not liking wine that cost fifteen shillings a bottle, and which your papa's friends declare to be worth five-and-thirty." "I am sorry it is so expensive, mamma; but I can't teach myself to think it nice," answered Charlotte, with a smile that sadly lacked the brightness of a few weeks ago. "I think one requires to go into the City, and become a merchant or a stockbroker, before one can like that sort of wine. What was it Valentine quoted in the _Cheapside_, about some lady whom somebody loved?--'To love her was a liberal education.' I think to like old port is a commercial education." "I am sure such wine _ought_ to do you good," said Georgy, almost querulously. She thought this bright blooming creature had no right to be ill. The headaches, and little weaknesses and languors and ladylike ailments, were things for which she (Georgy) had taken out a patent; and this indisposition of her daughter's was an infringement of copyright. "I dare say the port will do me good, mamma, in time. No doubt I shall be as strong as that person who strangled lions and snakes and dogs with incalculable heads, and all that kind of thing."