d Smith on terms that were
perfectly satisfactory to herself. Mrs. Harold Smith was worldly,
heartless--to all the world but her brother--and, as has been above
hinted, almost dishonest. Miss Dunstable was not worldly, though it
was possible that her present style of life might make her so; she
was affectionate, fond of truth, and prone to honesty, if those
around would but allow her to exercise it. But she was fond of ease
and humour, sometimes of wit that might almost be called broad, and
she had a thorough love of ridiculing the world's humbugs. In all
these propensities Mrs. Harold Smith indulged her.

Under these circumstances they were now together almost every day.
It had become quite a habit with Mrs. Harold Smith to have herself
driven early in the forenoon to Miss Dunstable's house; and that
lady, though she could never be found alone by Mr. Sowerby, was
habitually so found by his sister. And after that they would go out
together, or each separately, as fancy or the business of the day
might direct them. Each was easy to the other in this alliance, and
they so managed that they never trod on each other's corns. On the
day following the agreement made between Mr. Sowerby and Mrs. Harold
Smith, that lady as usual called on Miss Dunstable, and soon found
herself alone with her friend in a small room which the heiress kept
solely for her own purposes. On special occasions persons of various
sorts were there admitted; occasionally a parson who had a church to
build, or a dowager laden with the last morsel of town slander, or
a poor author who could not get due payment for the efforts of his
brain, or a poor governess on whose feeble stamina the weight of
the world had borne too hardly. But men who by possibility could be
lovers did not make their way thither, nor women who could be bores.
In these latter days, that is, during the present London season, the
doors of it had been oftener opened to Mrs. Harold Smith than to any
other person. And now the effort was to be made with the object of
which all this intimacy had been effected. As she came thither in her
carriage, Mrs. Harold Smith herself was not altogether devoid of that
sinking of the heart which is so frequently the forerunner of any
difficult and hazardous undertaking. She had declared that she would
feel no fear in making the little proposition. But she did feel
something very like it: and when she made her entrance into the
little room she certainly wis