We have had several “parties”—­batches of Gurrage relations—­one or two really awful people.  And some days ago I was bidden to write and invite the guests for the first big partridge drive.

“The mater will be gone to Bournemouth,” Augustus said, “and you’ll have to stand on your own legs.”

Matrimony has not cured him of his habit of using horrid phrases.

He has often been very rude to me lately, and has taken to going more frequently to town for the day, and stays away for a night or two sometimes.

These seem to me as holidays, and I have never thought of asking him where he has been, although he comes back with an apologetic air of a guilty school-boy which ought to excite my jealousy, I feel sure.

During these absences his mother looks uneasy and has once or twice asked me if I know where he is.

My books have come—­quantities of books!—­and I spend hours in my boudoir, never lifting my eyes from the pages to be distracted by the glaring, mustard-brocade walls around me.

Mrs. Gurrage treats me with respect.  There is a gradual but complete change in her manner to me, from what cause I do not know.  I am invariably polite to her and consider all her wishes, and she often tells me she is very proud of me; but all trace of the familiarity she exercised towards me in the beginning has disappeared.

I am sorry for her, as she is deeply anxious, also, about this question of the Yeomanry going to the war.

Augustus is still her idol.

Perhaps I am wicked to be so indifferent to them all.  Perhaps it is not enough just to submit and to have gentle manners.  I ought to display interest; but I cannot—­oh, I cannot.

It is the very small things that jar upon me—­their sordid views upon no matter what question—­the importance they attach to trifles.

Sometimes in the afternoons, after tea, Amelia reads the Family Herald to Mrs. Gurrage.

“A comfort it was to me in my young days, my dear,” she often tells me.

The delinquencies of the house-maids are discussed at dinner, the smallest piece of gossip in Tilchester society.

I cannot, try as I will, remember the people’s different names, or whom Miss Jones is engaged to, or whom Miss Brown.  Quantities of these people come out to tea, and those afternoons are difficult to bear.  I feel very tired when evening comes, after having had to sit there and hear them talk.  Their very phraseology is as of a different world.

Augustus has not been drunk since the night at Harley, but often I think his eyes look as if he had had too much to drink, and it is on these occasions he is rude to me.

I believe in his heart he is very fond of me still, but his habit of bullying and blustering often conceals it.

He continually accuses me of being a cold statue, and regrets that he has married a lump of ice.  And when I ask him in what way I could please him better, he says I must love him.