Page:The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (emended first edition), Volume 2.djvu/230

220 "You did right to leave them, Lord Lowborough," said I. "I trust you will always continue to honour us so early with your company. And if Annabella knew the value of true wisdom, and the misery of folly and—and intemperance, she would not talk such nonsense—even in jest."

He raised his eyes while I spoke, and gravely turned them upon me with a half surprised, half abstracted look, and then bent them on his wife.

"At least," said she, "I know the value of a warm heart and a bold, manly spirit!"

And she pointed her words with a glance of triumph at me, which seemed to say, "And that is more than you do," and a look of scorn at her husband, that entered into his soul. I was intensely exasperated; but it was not for me to reprove her, or, as it seemed, to express my sympathy with her husband without insulting his feelings. All I could do, to obey my inward impulse, was to hand him a cup of