w her back
into a former condition.

'He ought to go and live by himself' said Marian, referring to her
mother's brother, the thirsty John.

'So he ought, to be sure. I'm always telling them so. But there!
you don't seem to be able to persuade them, they're that silly and
obstinate. And Susan, she only gets angry with me, and tells me not to
talk in a stuck-up way. I'm sure I never say a word that could offend
her; I'm too careful for that. And there's Annie; no doing anything with
her! She's about the streets at all hours, and what'll be the end of
it no one can say. They're getting that ragged, all of them. It isn't
Susan's fault; indeed it isn't. She does all that woman can. But Tom
hasn't brought home ten shillings the last month, and it seems to me as
if he was getting careless. I gave her half-a-crown; it was all I could
do. And the worst of it is, they think I could do so much more if I
liked. They're always hinting that we are rich people, and it's no good
my trying to persuade them. They think I'm telling falsehoods, and it's
very hard to be looked at in that way; it is, indeed, Marian.'

'You can't help it, mother. I suppose their suffering makes them unkind
and unjust.'

'That's just what it does, my dear; you never said anything truer.
Poverty will make the best people bad, if it gets hard enough. Why
there's so much of it in the world, I'm sure I can't see.'

'I suppose father will be back soon?'

'He said dinner-time.'

'Mr Quarmby has been telling me something which is wonderfully good news
if it's really true; but I can't help feeling doubtful.

He says that father may perhaps be made editor of The Study at the end
of this year.'

Mrs Yule, of course, understood, in outline, these affairs of the
literary world; she thought of them only from the pecuniary point of
view, but that made no essential distinction between her and the mass of
literary people.

'My word!' she exclaimed. 'What a thing that would be for us!'

Marian had begun to explain her reluctance to base any hopes on Mr
Quarmby's prediction, when the sound of a postman's knock at the
house-door caused her mother to disappear for a moment.

'It's for you,' said Mrs Yule, returning. 'From the country.'

Marian took the letter and examined its address with interest.

'It must be one of the Miss Milvains. Yes; Dora Milvain.'

After Jasper's departure from Finden his sisters had seen Marian several
times, and the mutual liking be