Intimates of the household said that the provocation was great--that Mrs.Lessingham's gift of sarcasm had that morning displayed itself much too brilliantly.

Still, the missile was an extreme retort, and on the whole it could not be wondered at that husband and wife resolved to live apart in future.

Mr.Lessingham was, in fact, an aristocratic boor, and his wife never puzzled so much over any intellectual difficulty as she did over the question how, as a girl, she came to imagine herself enamoured of him.

She was not, perhaps, singular in her concernment with such a personal problem.
"It is six years since I was in Italy," she said, when greetings were over, and she had seated herself.

"Don't you envy me my companion, Mrs.
Spence?
If anything could revive one's first enjoyment, it would be the sight of Cecily's." Cecily was sitting by Miriam, whose hand she had only just relinquished.