mother;
except that I should take care to condense my expenses into the very
narrowest compass that man ever condensed them yet."

"Not you, Lionel. You were never taught that sort of close economy."

"True," he answered. "But the most efficient of all instructors has come
to me now--necessity. I wish you would increase my gratitude and my
obligation to you by allowing Sibylla to remain here. In a little time,
if I have luck, I may make a home for her in London."

"Lionel, _it cannot be_," was the reply of Lady Verner. And he knew when
she spoke in that quiet tone of emphasis, that it could not be. "Why
should you go to London?" she resumed. "My opinion is that you will do
no good by going; that it is a wild-goose scheme altogether which you
have got in your head. I think I could tell you a better."

"What is yours?"

"Remain contentedly here with me until the return of Colonel Tempest. He
may even now be on his road. He will no doubt be able to get you some
civil appointment in one of the Presidencies; he has influence here with
the people that have to do with India. That will be the best plan,
Lionel. You are always wishing you could go abroad. Stay here quietly
until he comes; I should like you to stay, and I will put up with your
wife."

Some allusion, or allusions, in the words brought the flush to Lionel's
cheeks. "I cannot reconcile it to my conscience, mother, to remain on
here, a burden, upon your small income."

"But it is not a burden, Lionel," she said. "It is rather a help."

"How can that be?" he asked.

"So long as Jan pays."

"So long as Jan pays!" echoed Lionel, in astonishment. "Does Jan--pay?"

"Yes he does. I thought you knew it? Jan came here the day you
arrived--don't you remember it, when he had the pins in his shirt?
Decima had invited him to dinner, and he came in ten minutes before it,
and called me out of the room here, where I was with Lucy. The first
thing he did was to tumble into my lap a roll of bank-notes, which he
had been to Heartburg to get. A hundred and forty pounds, it was; the
result of his savings since he joined Dr. West in partnership. The next
thing he said was that all his own share of the profits of the practice,
he should bring to me to make up for the cost of you and Sibylla. Jan
said he had proposed that you should go to him; but Sibylla would not
consent to it."

Lionel's blood coursed on with a glow. Jan slaving and working for him!

"I never knew this,"