Although my sister never shook me for a moment in my determination that Fay should have her own way, she never for a moment ceased trying to shake me; and I found it a most fatiguing process. Of late years we have heard much talk about "wars of attrition": that is the kind of war in which Annabel would have excelled. There is a somewhat obscure passage in the Epistle of St. Jude about the Archangel Michael contending with the devil for the body of Moses. I don't in the least know what it means, but I know exactly what it felt like: and it felt like something very unpleasant indeed. I suggested--and not altogether from unselfish motives--that Annabel should repair to sunnier climes alone: but she stoutly refused to leave me while the East wind was in the air. She seemed to think that with her at my side I could defy my (so-called) enemy more successfully than if I tackled him alone. I endeavoured to point out to her that, according to her ideas, at any rate, my vulnerable part was not my side--my heel of Achilles, so to speak, was situated in my chest, and that, therefore, a silk muffler would be a surer defence than a score of sisters. But she still held to her own opinion (as it was her nature to do) that by some indefinable means her bodily presence prevented the inclement breeze from visiting my chest too roughly: and with the best intentions and the worst results, she absolutely declined to go abroad unless Fay and I accompanied her. But the tiresomeness of Annabel at this time was more than compensated for by the adorableness of Fay. Our little set-to in the smoking-room turned out to be one of those blessed fallings-out that all the more endear: and we had a heavenly time together, unclouded by either the presence of Frank or the persistence of Annabel. At any rate, for the time being we were all-in-all to each other. Tennyson remarked that "Sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things": but I must venture to disagree with him, as I once ventured to disagree with Shakspere. The memory of past happiness is a possession of which Time and Circumstance are powerless to rob one: at least I found it so in the dark days to come, when I lived over and over again in memory those happy weeks at Restham, after Fay and I quarrelled and made it up again, and before Frank came back. Then a fresh storm broke. Annabel found out about the play which was being prepared for Easter week, and made herself extremely unpleasant over it. I did all in my power to smooth things over between her and Fay, but with little success. With all my affection for my sister and all my adoration of my wife, I cannot pretend that Fay was altogether easy and adaptable when once her back was up; whilst Annabel in such circumstances was absolutely impossible. Therefore at this particular time life passed but roughly with me, as it did with the poet Cowper. But still rougher times were in store.