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166 employments and amusements, spoke of going to Whitehall in the spring, and dwelt with increasing animation on his hopes of a marquisate. When he talked of Albert, it was rather talking at Francesca, as if she were to be made responsible for the death of her brother. Ah, that talking at!—only those who have suffered from it can understand its wearing and petty misery, especially when placed in circumstances which forbid reply.

We are eloquent about oppression on a large scale,—we deprecate the tyranny of government, which, after all, extends but to few; and yet how little pity is bestowed upon those who suffer from that worst of tyranny in daily practice in daily life. What grievances would not most family histories disclose!—how much comfort is put aside—how much kindly feeling wasted, by the arbitrary cruelties of temper! I say cruelties; for what torture of rack or wheel can equal that of words? Take the annals of the majority of hearths for a twelvemonth, and we should be amazed at the quantity of wretchedness that would be writ in them, if writ truly.

Francesca felt every hour more keenly the pain of her unappreciated affection, of her unvalued existence. All the higher faculties of her mind lay utterly dormant. No one entered into