adds up every item to see no sou has been overcharged.  At this point I looked up and caught one of the Frenchmen’s eye.  Of course I glanced away at once, but there was such a gleam of fun in his that I nearly smiled.  Then, suddenly the recollection came upon me that this creature, this thing sitting opposite me, belonged to me.  I have his name, he is my husband.  I must not laugh with others at his odious ways.  After that I was glad to creep away.

I am worried about grandmamma.  She has not written; there only came a small note from the Marquis.  I am sure she must be very ill, if not already dead.  I cannot grieve; I almost feel as if I wished it so.  Augustus as a grandson-in-law would sting her fine senses unbearably.  He blusters continually, and his airs of proprietorship envers moi would irritate her; besides, she would always have the idea that she is cheating me by remaining alive, that, after all, my marriage was not a necessity if she is still there to keep me.  Oh, dear grandmamma! if I could save you a moment’s sorrow you know I would.  When I said good-bye to her she held me close and kissed me.  “Ambrosine,” she said, “I shall have started upon my journey before you come back; you must not grieve or be sad.  My last advice to you, my child, is to remember life is full of compensations, as you will find.  Try to see the bright and gay side of things, and, above all, do not be dramatic.”

She was always cheerful, grandmamma, but if I could just see her again to tell her I will, indeed I will, try to follow her advice!  Hush! here is Augustus; I hear his clumsy footsteps.  He has a telegram.

Alas! alas!  My fears are true—­grandmamma died this morning.  Oh!  I cannot write, the tears make everything a mist.

* * * * *

It is late July and I am at Ledstone as its nominal mistress—­I say nominal, for Augustus’s mother reigns, as she always did.

The sorrow of grandmamma’s death, the feeling that nothing can matter in the world now, has kept me from caring or asserting myself in any way.  I feel numb.  I seem to be a person listening from some gallery when they all speak around me, and that the Ambrosine who answers placidly is an automaton who moves by clockwork.

Shall I ever wake again?  I sit night after night in my mother-in-law’s “budwar,” the crimson-satin chairs staring at me, the wedding-cake ornament with its silver leaves glittering in the electric light; I sit there listening vaguely to her admonitions and endless prattle of Augustus’s perfections.  I have now heard every incident of his childhood:  what ailments he had, what medicines suited him best, when he cut all those superfluous teeth of his.

One little trait appears to have been considered a sign of great astuteness and infantine perception.  His fond parents—­the late Mr. Gurrage was alive then—­gave him a new threepenny bit each week to give to a barrel-organ man who played before the house at Bournemouth.  Augustus at the age of two invariably changed it on the stairs with the butler for two pennies and two halfpennies, keeping one penny halfpenny for himself.