And now the comforts of life, and its laziness, begin for her. For whereas her parents were forced to pinch themselves in many places, in order to assume the flush of wealth, and were unable to relax for a moment the busy society vigilance in which their daughter had to bear her part, there is, in the paradise of her new existence, a moneyed repose, which permits her, on the pretence of weariness, to cease from troubling herself about anything. This does not, however, prevent her from becoming a cause of infinite trouble to others. Her maid is worn to a shadow by the perpetual search for handkerchiefs and eau de Cologne, with which to bathe the aching forehead of her mistress. Her friends are distracted by the recital of her tales of shattered nerves, and merciless _migraines_; her husband finds his existence embittered by a constant change of butlers, and a perpetual succession of cooks, over whom his feeble wife exercises about as much control as the President of the French Republic over his short-lived Ministries. But, as yet, she has not attained to the full and perfect glory of the Invalid's life. During the next five years she is still to be seen occasionally at evening parties and afternoon teas in the houses of her friends. She also becomes the mother of two children, a boy and a girl. After her second confinement she is prostrated by a slight illness, and during her convalescence she makes up her mind that life is made tolerable only by illness and the delicate attentions that accompany it. She is confirmed in this opinion by the discovery that her figure is no longer adapted to the prevailing fashion of everyday dress, and that her complexion looks better in her own room and beneath her own arrangement of curtains than in the vulgar glare of unmitigated daylight. She therefore enters with a light heart and a practically unimpaired constitution, upon a prolonged period of tea-gowns, _chaises longues_, and half-lights, and is recognised everywhere as an Invalid. Henceforward she takes no concern in the pleasant labours or the social amenities of life. The busy hum of the great world beats outside her chamber, men and women are born, and marry and die, society may be convulsed with scandals, kingdoms may totter to their fall in a crash of wars and tumults, but the Invalid lies through the tedious days propped on pillows, and recks only of her own comfort. Her husband is raised to high office in the Government of the day, her boy plays cricket at Lord's or rows in his University Eight, her daughter grows in years and beauty, but she herself reposes, strong in the blessed luxury of feeble health, and in the impenetrable selfishness with which she exacts a minute and unswerving devotion from those who surround her.