didn't want me. He would be obliged to speak,
and said it would worry him if I were in the gallery listening to all
the attacks made upon him. (It is rather curious that I never heard him
speak in public, either in the house or in the country, where he often
made political speeches, in election times.) He was so sure that the
ministry would fall that we had already begun cleaning and making fires
in our own house, so on that afternoon, as I didn't want to sit at home
waiting for telegrams, I went up to the house with Henrietta. The
caretaker had already told us that the stock of wood and coal was giving
out, and she couldn't get any more in the quarter, and if she couldn't
make fires the pipes would burst, which was a pleasant prospect with the
thermometer at I don't remember how many degrees below zero. We found a
fine cleaning going on--doors and windows open all over the house--and
women scrubbing stairs, floors, and windows, rather under difficulties,
with little fire and little water. It looked perfectly dreary and
comfortless--not at all tempting. All the furniture was piled up in the
middle of the rooms, and W.
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