 I doubt the likelihood of a gentleman of
pleasure, and change, and politeness, accustomed to court and to be courted -«
    »Oh madam! By Heaven!«
    »- If I doubt the likelihood of such a character quite comprehending what
belongs to mine in my circumstances. Not to obtrude doctrine upon you,« she
looked at the rigid pile of hard pale books before her, »(for you go your own
way, and the consequences are on your own head), I will say this much: that I
shape my course by pilots, strictly by proved and tried pilots, under whom I
cannot be shipwrecked - can not be - and that if I were unmindful of the
admonition conveyed in those three letters, I should not be half as chastened as
I am.«
    It was curious how she seized the occasion to argue with some invisible
opponent. Perhaps with her own better sense, always turning upon herself and her
own deception.
    »If I forgot my ignorances in my life of health and freedom, I might
complain of the life to which I am now condemned. I never do; I never have done.
If I forgot that this scene, the Earth, is expressly meant to be a scene of
gloom, and hardship, and dark trial, for the creatures who are made out of its
dust, I might have some tenderness for its vanities. But I have no such
tenderness. If I did not know that we are, every one, the subject (most justly
the subject) of a wrath that must be satisfied, and against which mere actions
are nothing, I might repine at the difference between me, imprisoned here, and
the people who pass that gateway yonder. But I take it as a grace and favour to
be elected to make the satisfaction I am making here, to know what I know for
certain here, and to work out what I have worked out here. My affliction might
otherwise have had no meaning to me. Hence I would forget, and I do forget,
nothing. Hence I am contented, and say it is better with me than with millions.«
    As she spoke these words, she put her hand upon the watch, and restored it
to the precise spot on her little table which it always occupied. With her touch
lingering upon it, she sat for some moments afterwards, looking at it steadily
and half-defiantly.
    Mr. Blandois, during this exposition, had been strictly attentive, keeping
his eyes fastened on the lady, and thoughtfully stroking his moustache with his
two hands. Mr. Flintwinch had
