“How strange!” said Mrs. Stanmore to herself. “Master and mistress must have quarrelled desperately, somehow or another. And to think how loving they did seem to be till just at last! Well, they say such violent love is too hot to hold. I shall think of that when next Mr. Perkins says a civil word to me, and give him a civil word in return, for all he is not the man of my heart; for it’s my belief all the love should be on the man’s side. How well my poor mistress and Mr. Cresford went on, though he was so queer; and now she has got a husband she loves, this is the end of it all! Ah! it does not do to make too much of the men. If one has a man one does not care for, one has one’s wits about one, to know how to manage him.” While Mrs. Stanmore was making these sage reflections (in which there is much deserving attention from the young and inexperienced), Ellen, who could not sit still, and who was afraid to trust herself with her child, wandered like an unquiet spirit about the house, longing to visit every well-known room, and to bid each a sad adieu; but she met servants in every direction carrying trunks and imperials in all the bustle of departure. She took refuge in her boudoir, from which the few things she meant to carry with her were already removed. She looked round in silence and in calmness. There was not an object which did not remind her of some act of kindness of Algernon’s. A tap at the door startled her from the abstraction in which she stood. Mrs. Topham, the stately housekeeper, made her appearance. “If you please, ma’am, I come for orders during your absence. If you thought, ma’am, you should be away some little time, the furniture in the chintz-room wants washing sadly, and perhaps, ma’am, it would be a good opportunity to get it calendered.” “Do just as you please, Mrs. Topham. I cannot attend to those things at this moment.” “Certainly, ma’am, I would not trouble you for the world; but Miss Mason wished to know whether you would have them go on with master’s neckcloths, or whether you wished the table-linen to be put in hand immediately at the school.” “Oh yes, Mrs. Topham.” “What, the table-linen? or the neckcloths, did you mean, ma’am?” “Either: it matters little! Mr. Hamilton will be at home in a few days, and he will tell you. I am very ill, Mrs. Topham. I cannot—I cannot answer you.” And tears for the first time that morning flowed from her eyes. There is nothing so strange as the causes which open the flood-gates of woe. The vexation of being troubled with these trifles, and the feeling that she had no longer a right to regulate them, that it would no longer be her care to see to all these little household details, melted her to tears, when all the deep and overwhelming bearings of the case had not produced an inclination to weep. Mrs. Topham departed, surprised, grieved, and a little offended.