ove was wrested from her. She had never offered
love and tenderness and sympathy to others, and it would not come back
to her: it was just and right that it should not.

Why then vegetate through a narrow, dreary existence? She was only a
drag on Fred. Even if she were willing to make an essay of work, he
would not consent, partly from pride, but still more from that innate
sense of chivalry, a part of some men, who would be more cruelly wounded
to see a woman dear to them, struggling with distasteful toil, than to
make any sacrifice on their own part. If she were a man she would starve
in secret before it should be done. David Lawrence had in him some of
this pure, nobly generous blood; and many of his finer virtues seemed to
have been transmitted to these two children. The mother's individuality
had been absorbed by the two elder ones. Gertrude would be just such a
woman when she came to her mother's time of life.

Mr. Eastman had floated into another channel of prosperity. He was to go
to Russia as a railroad-director at a large salary, and ample chance for
speculation. Gertrude was all elation. She wrote to Irene, generously
forgiving her for not having submitted to be buried alive at Frodsham
Park, and proposed that she should rejoin her as soon as she was able to
travel. They would go to Vienna and Berlin, and spend the winter in St.
Petersburg. "I hope your beauty has not gone off," she wrote very
kindly. "One needs it to compare with some of the Russian women I have
seen."

Mrs. Minor had taken a summer cottage at Long Branch. Servants,
children, horses and carriages, were to go thither. Irene and her mother
must spend the season with them.

"You do look dreadfully," she said to Irene; "but moping here will not
mend you. It was a most absurd step for Fred to come back to Yerbury,
and take that paltry position! He has no real Lawrence pride, and I
don't see that his elegant education has done much for him. Why didn't
he study law, and go into politics? With his style and Mr. Minor's
connection, he might have filled some high position."

"Really," returned Irene, with a touch of the old sarcasm, "I suppose he
thought starving hardly a pleasant process while he was waiting for this
high position. I have sometimes wondered why Mr. Minor did not take him
into _his_ office, and induct him into the mysteries of stock-broking."

Agatha bit her lip.

"Because he did not know enough," she flung out. "And he will po