Dolly remembered words which came very inconveniently across
Christina's principles; yet she was afraid of saying too much. She
reflected that her friend was breathing the soft air of luxury, which
is not strengthening, and enveloped in a kind of mist of
conventionality, through which she could not see. With herself it was
different. She had been thrown out of all that; forced to do battle
with necessity and difficulty, and so driven to lay hold of the one
hand of strength and deliverance that she could reach. What wonder if
she held it fast and held it dear? while Christina seemed hardly to
have ever felt the need of anything.

"Now, Dolly, tell me all about yourself," Christina broke in upon her
meditations.

"There isn't much to tell."

"What have you been doing?"

"Painting miniatures--one of the last things."

"Oh, delightful! Copies?"

"Copies from life. May I take you? and then perhaps, if I succeed, you
will get me work."

"Work!" repeated Christina.

Dolly nodded. "Yes; I want work."

"Work!" cried Christina again. "Dolly, you don't mean that you _need_
it? Don't say that!"

"I do. That's nothing so dreadful, if only I can get it. I paint
miniatures for--I have had ten and I have had twenty pounds," said
Dolly with a laugh; "but twenty is magnificent. I do not ask twenty."

Christina exclaimed with real sorrow and interest, and was eager to
know the cause of such a state of things. Dolly could but give her the
bare facts, not the philosophy of them.

"You poor, dear, lovely little Dolly!" cried Christina. "A thought
strikes me. Why don't you marry this handsome, rich young Englishman?"

Again Dolly's face dimpled all over.

"The thought don't strike me," she said.

"But he's very rich, isn't he?"

"Yes. That is nothing to me. I wouldn't give my father and mother for
him."

"But for your father and mother's sake?"--There was a knock at the door
here. "What is it? dinner? Come, Dolly; we'll reason afterwards."

The dinner was excellent. More than the excellence, however, went to
Dolly's enjoyment. The rare luxury of eating without having to think
what it cost, and without careful management to make sure that enough
was left for the next day's breakfast and lunch. It was great luxury!
and how Dolly felt it, no one there could in the least guess. With
that, however, as the evening went on and the unwonted soft atmosphere
of ease was taking effect upon her, Dolly again and again drew the