she loves me most of
all. I do not wonder she cannot bear to hear about my father. My mother
is not like other women."

"Your mother is a famous woman," rejoined Mr. Clifford; "you ought to be
proud of her."

For as years passed on Felicita had attained some portion of her
ambition. In Riversborough it seemed as if she was the first writer of
the age; and though in London she had not won one of those extraordinary
successes which place an author suddenly at the top of the ladder, she
was steadily climbing upward, and was well known for her good and
conscientious work. The books she wrote were clever, though cynical and
captious; yet here and there they contained passages of pathos and
beauty which insured a fair amount of favor. Her work was always welcome
and well paid, so well that she could live comfortably on the income she
made for herself, without falling back on her marriage settlement.
Without an undue strain upon her mental powers she could earn a thousand
a year, which was amply sufficient for her small household.

Though Roland Sefton had lavished upon his high-born wife all the pomp
and luxury he considered fitting to the position she had left for him,
Felicita's own tastes and habits were simple. Her father, Lord
Riversford, had been but a poor baron with an encumbered estate, and his
only child had been brought up in no extravagant ways. Now that she had
to earn most of the income of the household, for herself she had very
few personal expenses to curtail. Thanks to Madame and Phebe, the house
was kept in exquisite order, saving Felicita the shock of seeing the
rooms she dwelt in dingy and shabby. Excepting the use of a carriage,
there was no luxury that she greatly missed.

As she became more widely known, Felicita was almost compelled to enter
into society, though she did it reluctantly. Old friends of her
father's, himself a literary man, sought her out; and her cousins from
Riversford insisted upon visiting her and being visited as her
relations. She could not altogether resist their overtures, partly on
account of her children, who, as they grew up, ought not to find
themselves without friends. But she went from home with unwillingness,
and returned to the refuge of her quiet study with alacrity.

There was only one house where she visited voluntarily. A distant cousin
of hers had married a country clergyman, whose parish was about thirty
miles from London, in the flat, green meadows of Essex. Th