'Georgina,' he said to me,
'Charlotte wants tone. She is beginning to stoop in a really lamentable
manner: we must make her take port or bark, or something of a
strengthening kind.' And then a day or two afterwards he decided on port,
and gave me the key of the cellar--which is a thing he rarely gives out
of his own hands--and told me the number of the bin from which I was to
take the wine--some old wine that he had laid by on purpose for some
special occasion; and no one is to have it but you, and you are to take a
glass daily at eleven o'clock. Mr. Sheldon is most particular about the
hour. The regularity of the thing is half the battle in these cases, he
says; and I am sure if you do not observe his wishes and mine, Charlotte,
it will be really ungrateful of you."
"But, dear mamma, I do observe Mr.--papa's wishes. I take my glass of
port every morning at eleven. I go to your cupboard in the breakfast-room
and take out my special decanter, and my special glass, in the most
punctiliously precise manner. I don't like the wine, and I don't like the
trouble involved in the ceremony of drinking it; but I go through it most
religiously, to please you and papa."
"And do you mean to say that you do not feel stronger after taking that
expensive old port regularly for nearly six weeks.
"I am sorry to say that I do not, mamma. I think if there is any change,
it is that I am weaker.
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