Page:The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (emended first edition), Volume 2.djvu/190

180 still: I would wait a little longer. But at dinner, when, after breakfasting at twelve o'clock on a bottle of soda-water and a cup of strong coffee, and lunching at two on another bottle of soda-water mingled with brandy, he was finding fault with everything on the table and declaring we must change our cook—I thought the time was come.

"It is the same cook as we had before you went, Arthur," said I. "You were generally pretty well satisfied with her then."

"You must have been letting her get into slovenly habits then, while I was away. It is enough to poison one—eating such a disgusting mess!" And he pettishly pushed away his plate, and leant back despairingly in his chair.

"I think it is you that are changed, not she," said I, but with the utmost gentleness, for I did not wish to irritate him.

"It may be so," he replied carelessly, as he seized a tumbler of wine and water, adding, when he had tossed it off—"for I have an