omfort in her acquaintance with the
big, normal, artless creature--something which actually raised her
spirits when she was depressed. Emily Fox-Seton paid constant kindly
tribute to her charms, and helped her to believe in them. When she was
with her, Agatha always felt that she really was lovely, after all, and
that loveliness was a great capital. Emily admired and revered it so,
and evidently never dreamed of doubting its omnipotence. She used to
talk as if any girl who was a beauty was a potential duchess. In fact,
this was a thing she quite ingenuously believed. She had not lived in a
world where marriage was a thing of romance, and, for that matter,
neither had Agatha. It was nice if a girl liked the man who married her,
but if he was a well-behaved, agreeable person, of good means, it was
natural that she would end by liking him sufficiently; and to be
provided for comfortably or luxuriously for life, and not left upon
one's own hands or one's parents', was a thing to be thankful for in any
case. It was such a relief to everybody to know that a girl was
"settled," and especially it was such a relief to the girl herself. Even
novels and plays were no longer fairy-stories of entrancing young men
and captivating young women who fell in love with each other in the
first chapter, and after increasingly picturesque incidents were married
in the last one in the absolute surety of being blissfully happy
forevermore. Neither Lady Agatha nor Emily had been brought up on this
order of literature, nor in an atmosphere in which it was accepted
without reservation.

They had both had hard lives, and knew what lay before them. Agatha knew
she must make a marriage or fade out of existence in prosaic and
narrowed dulness. Emily knew that there was no prospect for her of
desirable marriage at all. She was too poor, too entirely unsupported by
social surroundings, and not sufficiently radiant to catch the roving
eye. To be able to maintain herself decently, to be given an occasional
treat by her more fortunate friends, and to be allowed by fortune to
present to the face of the world the appearance of a woman who was not a
pauper, was all she could expect. But she felt that Lady Agatha had the
right to more. She did not reason the matter out and ask herself why she
had the right to more, but she accepted the proposition as a fact. She
was ingenuously interested in her fate, and affectionately sympathetic.
She used to look at Lord Wa