Of course it was drink, and I ought to have known it without waiting for 'Enrietter herself to destroy my illusions, which she did at the end of the first fortnight. The revelation came with her "Sunday out." To simplify matters, I had made it mine too. 'Enrietter, according to my domestic regulations, was to be back by ten o'clock, but to myself greater latitude was allowed, and I did not return until after eleven. I was annoyed to see the kitchen door wide open and the kitchen gas flaring,--the worst of chambers is, you can't help seeing everything, whether you want to or not. 'Enrietter had been told not to wait up for me, and excess of devotion can be as trying as excess of neglect. If only that had been my most serious reason for annoyance! For when I went into the kitchen I found 'Enrietter sitting by the table, her arms crossed on it, her head resting on her arms, fast asleep; and what makes you laugh at noon may by midnight become a bore. I couldn't wake her. I couldn't move her. Again, she slept like a log. In the end I lost my temper, which was the best thing I could have done, for I shook her with such violence that, at last, she stirred in her sleep. I shook harder. She lifted her head. She smiled. "Thash a'right, mum," she said, and down went her head again. Furious, I shook her up on to her unsteady feet. "Go to bed," I said with a dignity altogether lost upon her. "Go at once, and in the dark. In your disgusting condition you are not fit to be trusted with a candle." 'Enrietter smiled. "Thash a'right, mum," she murmured reassuringly as she reeled up the stairs before me. I must say for her that drink made her neither disagreeable nor difficult. She carried it off light-heartedly and with the most perfect politeness. I had her in for a talk the next morning. I admit now that this was another folly. I ought to have sent her off bag and baggage then and there. But it was my first experience of the kind; I didn't see what was to become of me if she did go; and, as I am glad to remember, I had the heart to be sorry for her. She was so young, so pretty, so capable. The indiscretion of her Sunday out meant for me, at the worst, temporary discomfort; for her, it might be the beginning of a life's tragedy. Her explanation was ready,--she was as quick at explaining as at everything else. I needn't tell her what I thought of her, it seemed; it was nothing to what she thought of herself. There was no excuse. She was as disgusted as I could be. It was all her sister's fault. Her sister would make her drink a drop of brandy just before she left her home at Richmond. It was very wrong of her sister, who knew she wasn't used to brandy and couldn't stand it.