"I thought she looked so fair and sweet. Her neck and arms are like milk, William. I wonder if Reggie Forcus--means anything?" "Ba-a! Not he! No such luck." "I really don't see why. I don't see why our girls should not have as good luck as other people's. Reggie will marry some one, I suppose." "Now, don't be a silly fool if you can help it; and don't encourage the girl to run her head at any such nonsense. Francis Forcus will no more allow his brother to marry your daughter than the queen will allow him to marry one of hers. I told you that before." "But Bessie--poor child--thinks differently." "Tell Bessie not to be an ass then; and come to bed." She went to bed; and, spite of her disturbing thoughts of Bessie and her love affair, went to sleep. "Oh, dear!" she said as she lay down. "What a lot of bother there'll be for the servants, getting the house straight, tomorrow; and they so late to bed! The drawing-room carpet to put down again, and all the furniture to move into place. And it only seems the other day since we went through the same thing on last New Year's Eve." "Turning the house upside down is what women like. It's what they're made for." "I wonder how many more dances we shall have to give before both the girls are married, and off our hands! I'm sure I shall never take the trouble to give one for the boys." "Shan't you, indeed!" "Why do you speak like that, William? I don't know that I have said anything for you to jeer at." "Oh, go to sleep! And let's hope you won't have any worse troubles than the laying down or taking up of a carpet." The old servant Emily, who had lived with the Days since their marriage, and was as much friend as servant to her mistress and the young people, had once, in speaking of her master, made the memorable pronouncement that he was "Apples abroad and crabs at home." This speech, being interpreted, meant that the noisy, boisterous good temper and high spirit which his acquaintances witnessed in him did not always characterise the deportment of the head of the house in the bosom of his family. He lay for a time, staring at the dying fire which was on his side of the room. He lay still, to let his wife believe he was asleep, but was too irritable and restless to lie so for long. He turned about on his pillow, cautiously at first, so as not to wake her; yet when she did not awake was aggrieved, and sharply called her name. "You sleep like a pig," he said. "I have not closed my eyes since I came to bed." The fact that she could sleep and he could not was to him a grievance which dated from their marriage, twenty years ago. Poor Mrs. Day had grown to think her predilection to indulge in slumber when she went to bed was a failing to be apologised for and hidden, if possible. She was often driven fictitiously to protest that she also had lain wakeful. He received a like statement when she made it now in contemptuous silence.