There are some victories which feel very much like defeats. When Polly had scattered her adversaries on every side, driven forth Lottie and got rid of Law, and silenced Captain Despard--who sat in his room and heard everything but thought it wisest not to interfere--she retired upstairs to her drawing-room and celebrated her triumph by shedding torrents of tears. She had intended to make everybody very wretched, and she had done so; supposing, perhaps (though she did not really know what her motive was), that some pleasure would come to herself out of the discomfiture of the others. But pleasure rarely comes by that means, and when she had thus chased everybody out of her way, Polly threw herself down and burst forth into angry sobs and tears. It is not to be supposed that Captain Despard entertained any romantic illusions about his bride; he knew very well what Polly was. He had, as facts proved, been sufficiently fond of her to marry her, but he did not expect of her more than Polly could give, nor was he shocked to find that she had a temper and could give violent utterance to its vagaries; all this he had known very well before. Knowing it, however, he thought it wise to keep out of the way and not mix himself up in a fray with which evidently he had nothing to do. Had she gone a step further with Lottie it is possible that he might have interfered, for, after all, Lottie was his child; and though he might himself be hard upon her at times, there is generally a mingled sentiment of family pride and feeling which makes us unwilling to allow one who belongs to us to be roughly treated by a stranger. But when Law put himself in the breach, his father sat close and took no notice; he did not feel impelled to turn his wife’s batteries upon himself out of consideration for Law. Nor did it make any impression upon the Captain when he heard her angry sobs overhead. “She will come to if she is left to herself,” he said, and he did not allow himself to be disturbed. Polly, in her passion, threw herself on the carpet, leaning her head upon a chair. She had changed the room after her own fashion. She had lined the curtains with pink muslin, and fastened her crochet-work upon the chairs with bows of pink ribbon; she had covered the old piano with a painted cover, and adorned it with vases and paper flowers. She had made the faded little room which had seemed a fit home enough, in its grey and worn humility, for Lottie’s young beauty, into something that looked very much like a dressmaker’s ante-room, or that terrible chamber, “handsomely fitted up with toilet requisites,” where the victims of the photographic camera prepare for the ordeal. But the loveliness of her handiwork did not console Polly; she got no comfort out of the pink bows, nor even from the antimacassars--a point in which Lottie’s room was painfully deficient. She flung herself upon the carpet and sobbed. What was the use of being a lady, a Chevalier’s wife, and