hat there had been changes in the ways of the world during
the last century,--changes continued from year to year. Rank was not
so high as it used to be,--and in consequence those without rank not
so low. The Queen's daughter had married a subject. Lords John and
Lords Thomas were every day going into this and the other business.
There were instances enough of ladies of title doing the very thing
which she proposed to herself. Why should a Post Office clerk be
lower than another?

Then came the great question, whether it behoved her to ask her
father. Girls in general ask their mother, and send the lover to the
father. She had no mother. She was quite sure that she would not
leave her happiness in the hands of the present Marchioness. Were she
to ask her father she knew that the matter would be at once settled
against her. Her father was too much under the dominion of his wife
to be allowed to have an opinion of his own on such a matter. So she
declared to herself, and then determined that she would act on her
own responsibility. She would accept the man, and then take the first
opportunity of telling her stepmother what she had done. And so it
was. It was only early on that morning that she had given her answer
to George Roden,--and early on that morning she had summoned up her
courage, and told her whole story.

The station to which she was taken was a large German schloss, very
comfortably arranged, with the mountain as a background and the River
Elbe running close beneath its terraces, on which the Marquis had
spent some money, and made it a residence to be envied by the eyes
of all passers-by. It had been bought for its beauty in a freak, but
had never been occupied for more than a week at a time till this
occasion. Under other circumstances Lady Frances would have been as
happy here as the day was long, and had often expressed a desire to
be allowed to stay for a while at Koenigsgraaf. But now, though she
made an attempt to regard their sojourn in the place as one of the
natural events of their life, she could not shake off the idea of
a prison. The Marchioness was determined that the idea of a prison
should not be shaken off. In the first few days she said not a word
about the objectionable lover, nor did the Marquis. That had been
settled between them. But neither was anything said on any other
subject. There was a sternness in every motion, and a grim silence
seemed to preside in the chateau, except when the