"Don't be a fool, Emily; nobody wants to 'trample' on you. You can give as good as you get, too. What an infernal rumpus about nothing! 'Pon my soul! I think you have both gone crazy." "I'm in the way--yes! And I'm shown every hour that I'm in the way!" she sobbed, in crescendo. "Humphrey is a witness how I am treated. I won't stop where I'm not wanted. This is the end of it. I'll go--I'll take a situation!" Everybody excepting the offender endeavoured to pacify her. Cynthia put an arm round her waist and spoke consolingly, while Walford patted her on the back. Humphrey brought her whisky-and-water, but she waved it violently aside. "I'll take a situation; I've made up my mind. Thank Heaven! I'm not quite dependent on a sister and a brother-in-law yet. Thank Heaven! I've the health to work for my living. I'd rather live in one room on a pound a week than remain with you. I shall leave your house the moment I can get something to do. I'll be a paid companion--I'll go into a shop!" And she went into hysterics. When she recovered, she drank the whisky-and-water tearfully, and begged Kent to take her back to The Hawthorns. He complied amiably, and tried on the way to dissuade her from her determination. It was his first experience of this phase of Miss Wix, and he was a good deal surprised by the valour that she displayed. Her weakness had passed, and the light of resolution shone in the little woman's eyes. Her nostrils were dilated, her carriage was firm and erect. He felt that it was no empty boast when she asserted stoutly that she would go to a registry-office on the morrow--nor was it; as much as that she would probably do. But the prospect of employment was as the martyr's stake or an arena of lions, to her mind; and, after the office had been visited, the decision of her manner would decrease, and the heroism in her eyes subside, until at last she trembled in a cold perspiration lest her relatives should take her at her word. "It'll be a small household if you go," he said; "I suppose Cæsar won't live at home after he comes out, and they will be left by themselves." Miss Wix sniffed. "_When_ he comes out!" "Yes; he seems to have been rather a long while doing it. But there can't be any doubt about it this time; the agreement for the spring is signed, I hear." They were passing a lamp-post. Miss Wix's mouth was the size of a sixpence, and her eyebrows had entirely disappeared under her bonnet. "It always is," she said. "The agreements are always signed--and written in invisible ink. I don't seem to remember the time when that young man _wasn't_ coming out 'next spring,' and I knew him in his cradle. He was an affected horror then."