It was one of the worthy woman’s specialities that she had an amazing power of gratifying her splenetic or worldly-minded humours by extolling her own family: which she thus proceeded, in the present case, to do.

“No, R. W. Lavinia has not known the trial that Bella has known. The trial that your daughter Bella has undergone, is, perhaps, without a parallel, and has been borne, I will say, nobly. When you see your daughter Bella in her black dress, which she alone of all the family wears, and when you remember the circumstances which have led to her wearing it, and when you know how those circumstances have been sustained, then, R. W. , lay your head upon your pillow and say, ‘Poor Lavinia!’ ”

Here, Miss Lavinia, from her kneeling situation under the table, put in that she didn’t want to be “poored by pa,” or anybody else.