means in a most extraordinary sort
of way. Sometimes I think it must be Decima's fault, and tell
her she does not properly look after the household. In spite
of my own income, your ample allowance, and the handsome
remuneration received for Lucy, I cannot make both ends meet.
Will you let me have two or three hundred pounds?

"Ever your affectionate mother,

"LOUISA VERNER."

"I will call on Lady Verner this afternoon, Tynn."

Tynn withdrew with the answer. Lionel leaned his brow upon his hand; the
weary expression terribly plain just then.

"My mother shall have it at once--no matter what my own calls may be,"
was his soliloquy. "Let me never forget that Verner's Pride might have
been hers all these years. Looking at it from our own point of view, my
father's branch in contradistinction of my uncle's, it ought to have
been hers. It might have been her jointure-house now, had my father
lived, and so willed it. I am _glad_ to help my mother," he continued,
an earnest glow lighting his face. "If I get embarrassed, why, I must
get embarrassed; but she shall not suffer."

That embarrassment would inevitably come, if he went on at his present
rate of living, he had the satisfaction of knowing beyond all doubt.
That was not the worst point upon his conscience. Of the plans and
projects that Lionel had so eagerly formed when he came into the estate,
some were set afloat, some were not. Those that were most wanted--that
were calculated to do the most real good--lay in abeyance; others, that
might have waited, were in full work. Costly alterations were making in
the stables at Verner's Pride, and the working man's institute at
Deerham--reading-room, club, whatever it was to be--was progressing
swimmingly. But the draining of the land near the poor dwellings was not
begun, and the families, many of them, still herded in consort--father
and mother, sons and daughters, sleeping in one room--compelled to it by
the wretched accommodation of the tenements. It was on this last score
that Lionel was feeling a pricking of conscience. And how to find the
money to make these improvements now, he knew not. Between the building
in progress and Sibylla, he was drained.

A circumstance had occurred that day to bring the latter neglect
forcibly to his mind. Alice Hook--Hook the labourer's eldest
daughter--had, as the Deerham phrase ran, got herself into trouble. A
pretty child she had grown up amongst them--s