After that she would lie down and try to sleep, and then write a letter home, do a little embroidery, yawn, weep, wish herself dead, and wonder how soon she would hear from her father. The dragging hours would at length draw on the late dinner, when she would make an elaborate toilet, just for pastime, and go to dinner, which always seemed like a funeral feast. Here Claudia formed the habit of drinking much more wine than was good for her: and she did it to blunt her sensibility; to obtund the sharpness of her heartache; to give her sleep. After dinner they would go into the drawing room, where coffee would be served. And after that, if Mrs. Dugald were in the humor, there would be music. And then the party would disperse. Claudia would go into her own room and pass a long, lonely, wretched evening, sometimes speculating on life, death, and immortality, and wondering whether, in the event of her deciding to walk out of this world with which she was so much dissatisfied, into the other of which she knew nothing, she would be any better off. At eleven o'clock she always rang for wine and biscuits, and drank enough to make her sleep. Then she would go to bed, sink into a heavy, feverish sleep, that would last until the morning, when she would awake with a headache, as well as a heartache, to pass just such a day as the preceding one. Such were Claudia's days and nights. Ah! how different to those she had pictured when she sold herself and her fortune for rank and title. Her days were all so much alike that they could only be distinguished by the change in her dinner dress, and the difference in the bill of fare. "It is maize-colored moire antique and mutton one day and violet- colored velvet and veal another; that is all!" wrote Claudia in one of her letters home. That was all! The same leaden sky overhung the land and sea; the same fine, penetrating mist drizzled slowly down and sifted like snow into everything; the same stupid routine of sleeping, walking, dressing, eating, drinking, undressing, and sleeping again, occupied the household. No visitors ever came to the house, and of course Claudia went nowhere. She was unspeakably miserable, and would have wished for death, had she not been a firm believer in future retribution. "Misery loves company," it is said. There was one inmate in this unblessed house who seemed quite as miserable as Claudia herself. This was one of the housemaids; the one who had charge of Claudia's own rooms. Lady Vincent had noticed this poor girl, and had observed that she was pale, thin, sad, always with red eyes, and often in tears. Once she inquired kindly: "What is the matter with you, Ailsie?" "It's just naething, me leddy," was the weeping girl's answer. "But I am sure it is something. Can you not tell me? What is it troubles you?" "Just naething, me leddy," was still the answer. "Are you away from all your friends? Are you homesick?" "I ha'e naebody belanging to me, me leddy."