typical of her
loveless childhood. With her mother's death faded the one ray of light
that had illumined her desolation. She was shifted from one nurse to
another; and bar nurses were not allowed to love her, for she remained
with them as an encumbrance and a burden. It was so difficult for the
Captain to pay the pitiful sum demanded for his daughter's support--or
rather it was so much easier for him not to pay it. So there always
came a time when Diana was delivered at her father's lodgings like a
parcel, by an indignant nurse, who proclaimed the story of her wrongs
in shrill feminine treble, and who was politely informed by the Captain
that her claim was a common debt, and that she had the remedy in her
own hands, but that the same code of laws which provided her with that
remedy, forbade any obnoxious demonstration of her anger in a
gentleman's apartment. And then Miss Paget, after hearing all the
tumult and discussion, would be left alone with her father, and would
speedily perceive that her presence was disagreeable to him.

When she outgrew the age of humble foster-mothers and cottages in the
dreariest of the outlying suburbs, the Captain sent his daughter to
school: and on this occasion he determined on patronising a person whom
he had once been too proud to remember among the list of his kindred.
There are poor and straggling branches upon every family tree; and the
Pagets of Thorpehaven had needy cousins who, in the mighty battle of
life, were compelled to fight amongst the rank and file. One of these
poor cousins was a Miss Priscilla Paget, who at an early age had
exhibited that affection for intellectual pursuits and that
carelessness as to the duties of the toilet which are supposed to
distinguish the predestined blue-stocking. Left quite alone in the
world, Priscilla put her educational capital to good use; and after
holding the position of principal governess for nearly twenty years in
a prosperous boarding-school at Brompton, she followed her late
employer to her grave with unaffected sorrow, and within a month of the
funeral invested her savings in the purchase of the business, and
established herself as mistress of the mansion. To this lady Captain
Paget confided his daughter's education; and in Priscilla Paget's house
Diana found a shelter that was almost like a home, until her kinswoman
became weary of promises that were never kept, and pitiful sums paid on
account of a debt that grew bigger every da