. We have
much to talk of, haven't we?"

Nelly murmured an assent, and the other continued,--

"It's all so sudden, and so dreadful--one doesn't realize it; at least,
_I_ don't. And it usually takes me an hour or two of a morning to
convince me that we are all ruined; and then I set to work thinking how
I 'm to live on--I forget exactly what--how much is it, darling? Shall I
be able to keep my dear horses? I 'd rather die than part with Ben Azir;
one of the Sultan's own breeding; an Arab of blue blood, Nelly, think
of that! I've refused fabulous sums for him; but he is such a love,
and follows me everywhere, and rears up when I scold him--and all to be
swept away as if it was a dream. What do you mean to do, dearest? Marry,
of course. I know that--but in the mean while?"

"We are going to Cattaro. Augustus has been named consul there."

"Darling child, you don't know what you are saying. Is n't a consul a
horrid creature that lives in a seaport, and worries merchant seamen,
and imprisons people who have no passports?"

"I declare I have n't a notion of his duties," said Nelly, laughing.

"Oh, I know them perfectly. Papa always wrote to the consul about
getting heavy baggage through the customhouse; and when our servants
quarrelled with the porters, or the hotel people, it was the consul sent
some of them to jail; but are you aware, darling, he is n't a creature
one knows. They are simply impossible, dear, impossible." And as she
spoke she lay back in her chair, and fanned herself as though actually
overcome by the violence of her emotion.

"I must hope Augustus will not be impossible;" and Nelly said this with
a dry mixture of humor and vexation.

"He can't help it, dearest. It will be from no fault of his own. Let a
man be what he may, once he derogates there's an end of him. It sounds
beautifully, I know, to say that he will remain gentleman and man of
station through all the accidents of life; so he might, darling, so long
as he did nothing--absolutely nothing. The moment, however, he touches
an _emploi_ it's all over; from that hour he becomes the Customs
creature, or the consul, or the factor, or whatever it be, irrevocably.
Do you know that is the only way to keep men of family out of small
official life? We should see them keeping lighthouses if it were not for
the obloquy."

"And it would be still better than dependence."

"Yes, dearest, in a novel--in a three-volume thing from Mudie--so it
would; bu