acked as they had never been blacked before, with a
note inside one of them. Affecting! wasn't it? Thenceforward, as long as
they remained in those lodgings, Anna mended and Louis blacked.
Naturally, Anthony and I drew our conclusions."

Marcella laughed.

"You must bring her to see me," she said to Louis.

"I will," said Louis, with some perplexity; "if I can get hold of her.
But when she isn't stitching she's writing, or trying to set up Unions.
She does the work of six. She'll earn nearly as much as I do when we're
married. Oh! we shall swim!"

Anthony surveyed his radiant aspect--so unlike the gentle or satirical
detachment which made his ordinary manner--with a darkening eye, as
though annoyed by his effusion.

"Two hundred a year?" he said slowly; "about what Mr. Harry Wharton
spends on his clothes, I should think. The Labour men tell me he is
superb in that line. And for the same sum that he spends on his clothes,
he is able to buy _you_, Louis, body and soul, and you seem inclined to
be grateful."

"Never mind," said Louis recklessly. "He didn't buy some one else--and I
_am_ grateful!"

"No; by Heaven, you shan't be!" said Anthony, with a fierce change of
tone. "_You_ the dependent of that charlatan! I don't know how I'm to
put up with it. You know very well what I think of him, and of your
becoming dependent on him."

Marcella gave an angry start. Louis protested.

"Nonsense!" said Anthony doggedly; "you'll have to bear it from me, I
tell you--unless you muzzle me too with an Anna."

"But I don't see why _I_ should bear it," said Marcella, turning upon
him. "I think you know that I owe Mr. Wharton a debt. Please remember
it!"

Anthony looked at her an instant in silence. A question crossed his
mind concerning her. Then he made her a little clumsy bow.

"I am dumb," he said. "My manners, you perceive, are what they always
were."

"What do you mean by such a remark," cried Marcella, fuming. "How can a
man who has reached the position he has in so short a time--in so many
different worlds--be disposed of by calling him an ugly name? It is more
than unjust--it is absurd! Besides, what can you know of him?"

"You forget," said Anthony, as he calmly helped himself to more bread
and butter, "that it is some three years since Master Harry Wharton
joined the Venturists and began to be heard of at all. I watched his
beginnings, and if I didn't know him well, my friends and Louis's did.
And most of them