the jockey.'

'Oh, very respectable, they say'--with a sound of disgust.

'Is he young?'

'No; caught early, something might be done with him, but there's not that
hope. He is not much less than forty. Fancy a creature that has
pettifogged, as an underling too, all his life.'

'Married?'

'Thank goodness, no, and all the mammas in London and in the country will
be running after him. Not that he will be any great catch, for of course
he has nothing--and the poor place will be brought to a low ebb.'

'And what do you mean to do, Birdie?'

'Get out of sight of it all as fast as possible! Forget that horses ever
existed except as means of locomotion,' and Bertha got up and walked
towards the window as if restless with pain, then came back.

'I shall get rid of all I can--and come to live as near as I can to
Whitechapel, and slum! I'm free now.' Then looking at her cousin's
sorrowful, wistful face, 'Work, work, work, that's all that's good for
me. Soberly, Lettice, this is my plan,' she added, sitting down again.
'I know how it all is left. This new man is to have enough to go on
upon, so as not to be too beggarly and bring the title into contempt. He
is only coming for to-morrow, having to wind up his business; but I shall
stay on till he comes back, and settle what to do with the things here.
Adela and I have our choice of them, and don't want to leave the place
too bare. Then I shall sell the London house, and all the rest of the
encumbrances, and set up for myself.'

'Not with Adela?'

'Oh no; Adela means to stick by the old place, and I couldn't do that for
a constancy--oh no,' with a shudder.

'Does she?' in some wonder.

'Her own people don't want her. The Arlingtons are with her now, but I
fancy she would rather be sitting with us--or alone best of all, poor
dear. You see, she is a mixture of the angel that is too much for some
people. How she got it I don't know, not among us, I should think,
though she came to us straight out of the schoolroom, or I fancy she
would never have come at all. But oh, Lettice, if you could have seen
her how patient she has been throughout with my father, reading him all
about every race, just because she thought it was less gall and wormwood
to her than to me, and going out to the stables to satisfy him about his
dear Night Hawk, and all the rest of it. When she was away for that
fortnight over poor little Michael, I found to the full what she had
been, and