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theory than in practice. The interest of the small capital was not sufficient by itself to meet the current expenses, though these were conducted upon the most economical scale; and Marion, upon whose shoulders all domestic cares devolved, was presently at her wits' end how to get on. She did all the cooking herself, and much of the washing, though Mrs. Lockhart strongly protested against the latter, because Marion's hands were of remarkably fine shape and texture, being, in fact, her chief beauty from the conventional point of view, and washing would make them red and ugly. Marion affirmed, with more sincerity than is commonly predicable of such sayings, that her hands were made to use, and that she did not care about them except as they were useful; and she went on with her washing in spite of protestations. But even this did not cover deficiencies; and then there was the wardrobe question. Marion, however, pointed out that, in the first place, she had enough clothes on hand to last her for a long time, especially as she had done growing; and, secondly, that she could easily manage all necessary repairs and additions herself. Το this Mrs. Lockhart replied that young ladies must be dressed like young ladies; that good clothes were a necessary tribute to good society; and that in order to be happily and genteelly married, a girl must make the most of her good points, and subdue her bad ones, by the adornments of costume. This was, no doubt, very true; but marriage was a thing which Marion never could hear proposed, even by her own mother, with any patience; and, as a consequence, to use marriage as an argument in support of dress, was to ensure the rejection of the argument. Marriage, said Marion, was, to begin with, a thing to which her whole character and temperament were utterly opposed. She was herself too much like a man ever to care for a man, or not to despise him. In the next place, if a girl had nof enough in her to win an honest man's love, in spite of any external disadvantages, then the best thing for her would be not to be loved at all. Love, this young dissenter would go on to observe, is something sacred, if it is anything; and so pure and sensitive, that it were infinitely better to forego it altogether than to run the least risk of getting it mixed up with any temporal or expedient considerations. And since, she would add, it seems to be impossible nowadays ever to get love in that unsullied and virginal condition, she for her part intended to give it a wide berth if ever it came in her way—which she was quite sure it never would; because it takes two to make a bargain, and not only would she never be one of the two, but, if she were to be so, she thanked God that she had so ugly a face and so unconciliating a temper that no man would venture to put up with

her; unless, perhaps, she were possessed of five or ten thousand a year; from which misfortune it was manifestly the beneficent purpose of Providence to secure her. The upshot of this diatribe was that she did not care how shabby and ungenteel her clothes were, so long as they were clean and covered her; and that even if she could afford to hire a dressmaker, she would still prefer to do her making and mending herself; because no one so well as herself could comprehend what she wanted.

"You should not call yourself ugly, Marion," her mother would reply "at any rate, you should not think yourself ugly. A girl generally appears to others like what she is in the habit of thinking herself to be. Half the women who are called beauties are not really beautiful; but they have persuaded themselves that they are so, and then other people believe it. People in this world so seldom take the pains to think or to judge for themselves; they take what is given to them. Besides, to think a thing, really does a great deal towards making it come true. If you think you are pretty, you will grow prettier ever day. And if you keep on talking about being ugly ... You have a very striking, intelligent face, my dear; and your smile is very charming indeed."

Marion laughed scornfully. "Believing a lie is not the way to invent truth," she said. "All the imagination in England won't make me different from what I am. Whether I am ugly or not, I'm not a fool, and I shan't give anybody the right to call me one by behaving as if I fancied I were somebody else. I am very well as I am," she continued, wringing out a towel and spreading it out on the clothes-horse to dry. "I should be too jealous and suspicious to make a man happy, and I don't mean to try it. You don't understand that; but you were made to be married, and I wasn't, and that's the reason."

Nevertheless, the income continued to be insufficient, and inroads continued to be made on the capital, much to the friendly distress of Sir Francis Bendibow, the head of the great banking house of Bendibow Brothers, to whose care the funds of the late Major Lockhart had been entrusted. "The first guinea you withdraw from your capital, my dear madam," he had assured Mrs. Lockhart, with his usual manner of impressive courtesy, "represents your first step on the road that leads to bankruptcy." The widow admitted the truth. of the maxim; but misfortunes are not always curable in proportion as they are undeniable; though that seemed to be Sir Francis's assumption. Mrs. Lockhart began to suffer from her anxieties. Marion saw this, and was in despair. "What a good-for-nothing

thing a woman is!" she exclaimed bitterly. "If I were a man, I would earn our living." She understood something of music, and sang and played with great refinement and expression; but her talent in this direction was natural, not acquired, and she was not sufficiently grounded in the science of the accomplishment to have any chance of succeeding as a teacher. What was to be done?

"What do you say to selling the house and grounds, and going into lodgings?" she said one day.

"It would help us for a time, but not for always," the mother replied. "Lodgings are so expensive."

"The house is a great deal bigger than we need," said Marion. "We should be no better off if it were smaller," said Mrs. Lockhart.

There was a long pause. Suddenly Marion jumped to her feet, while the light of inspiration brightened over her face. "Why, mother, what is to prevent us letting our spare rooms to lodgers? " she cried out.

"Oh, that would be impossible!" returned the mother in dismay. "The rooms that your dear father used to live in!".

"That is what we must do," answered Marion firmly: and in the end, as we have seen, that was what they did.

CHAPTER V.

THE third of May passed away, and, beyond the hanging up in the window of the card with "Lodgings to Let" written on it, nothing new had happened in the house at Hammersmith. But the exhibition of that card had been to Mrs. Lockhart an event of such momentous and tragic importance, that she did not know whether she were most astonished, relieved, or disappointed that it had produced no perceptible effect upon the outer universe.

"It seems to be of no use," she said to her daughter, while the latter was assisting her in her morning toilette. "Had we not better take down the card, and try to think of something else? Couldn't we keep half-a-dozen fowls, and sell the eggs?"

"How faint-hearted you are, mother!"

"Besides, even if somebody were to pass here who wanted lodg. ings, they could never think of looking through the gate; and if they did, I doubt whether they could see the card."

"I have thought of that; and, when I got up this morning, I tied the card to the gate itself. Nobody can fail to see it there."

"Oh, Marion! It is almost as if we were setting up a shop." "Everybody is more or less a shopkeeper," replied Marion philosophically. "Some people sell rank, others beauty, others cleverness, others their souls to the devil: we might do worse than sell house. room to those who want it."

"Oh, my dear!"

"Bless your dear heart! you'll think nothing of it, once the lodgers are in the house," rejoined the girl, kissing her mother's cheek.

They went down to breakfast: it was a pleasant morning; the sky was a tender blue, and the eastern sunshine shot through the dark limbs of the cedar of Lebanon, and fell in cheerful patches on the floor of the dining-room, and sent a golden shaft across the white breakfast-cloth, and sparkled on the silver tea-pot-the same tea-pot in which Fanny Pell had once made tea for handsome Tom Grantley in the year 1768. Marion was in high spirits: at all events, she adopted a lightsome tone, in contrast to her usual somewhat grave preoccupation. She was determined to make her mother

smile.

“This is our last solitary breakfast," she declared. "To-morrow morning we shall sit down four to table. There will be a fine old gentleman for me, and a handsome young man for you; for anybody would take you to be the younger of us two. The old gentleman will be impressed with my masculine understanding and knowledge of the world; we shall talk philosophy, and history, and politics; he will finally confess to a more than friendly interest in me; but I shall stop him there, and remind him that, for persons of our age, it is most prudent not to marry. He will allow himself to be persuaded on that point; but he has a vast fortune, and he will secretly make his will in my favour. Your young gentleman will be of gentle blood, a sentimentalist and an artist; his father will have been in love with you; the son will have the good taste to inherit the passion; he will entreat you to let him paint your portrait; but, if he becomes too pressing in his attentions, I shall feel it my duty to take him aside, and admonish him like a mother. He will be so mortally afraid of me, that I shall have no difficulty in managing him. In the course of a year or two—'

"Is not that somebody? I'm sure I heard

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"La, mother, don't look so scared!" cried Marion, laughing, but colouring vividly: "it can't be anything worse than an executioner with a warrant for our arrest." She turned in her chair, and looked through the window and across the grass-plot to the gate.

"There is somebody-two gentlemen-just as I said: one old and the other young."

"Are you serious, Marion?" said the widow, interlacing her fingers across her breast, while her lips trembled.

"They are reading the card: the old one is holding a pair of gold-rimmed eye-glasses across his nose. Now they are looking through the gate at the house: the young one is saying something, and the other is smiling and taking snuff. The young one has a small head, but his eyes are big, and he has broad shoulders: he looks like an artist, just as I said. The old one stoops a little and is ugly; but I like his face-it's honest. He doesn't seem to be very rich, though; his coat is very old-fashioned. Oh, they are going away!"

Oh, I am so glad!" exclaimed Mrs. Lockhart fervently.

"No, they are coming back-they are coming in: the young one is opening the gate. Here they come: that young fellow is certainly very handsome. There!"

A double knock sounded through the house.

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Say we are not at home-oh, they must not come in! Tell them to call another day. Perhaps they may not have called about the lodgings," faltered the widow, in agitation.

Marion said nothing; being, to tell the truth, engaged in screwing her own courage to the sticking-point. After a pause of a few moments she marched to the door, with a step so measured and deliberate as to suggest stern desperation rather than easy indifference. Passing into the hall, and closing the door behind her, she threw open the outer door and faced the two intruders.

The elder gentleman stood forward as spokesman. "Good morning to you," he said, glancing observantly at the young woman's erect figure. "You have lodgings to let, I believe?"

"Yes."

"This gentleman and I are in search of lodgings. Is the accommodation sufficient for two? We should require separate apartments."

"You can come in and see." She made way for them to enter, and conducted them into the sitting-room on the left.

"You had better speak to your mistress, my dear, or to your master, if he is at home, and say we would like to speak to him." This was said by the younger man.

Marion looked at him with a certain glow of fierceness. "My father is not living," she said. "There is no need to disturb my mother. I can show you over the house myself."

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