ra doubtfully.

'What a comical question! It is my business to know something about
every subject--or to know where to get the knowledge.'

'Well,' said Dora, after a pause, 'there's no doubt Maud and I ought
to think very seriously about the future. You are aware, Jasper, that
mother has not been able to save a penny of her income.'

'I don't see how she could have done. Of course I know what you're
thinking; but for me, it would have been possible. I don't mind
confessing to you that the thought troubles me a little now and then;
I shouldn't like to see you two going off governessing in strangers'
houses. All I can say is, that I am very honestly working for the end
which I am convinced will be most profitable.

I shall not desert you; you needn't fear that. But just put your heads
together, and cultivate your writing faculty. Suppose you could both
together earn about a hundred a year in Grub Street, it would be better
than governessing; wouldn't it?'

'You say you don't know what Miss Yule writes?'

'Well, I know a little more about her than I did yesterday. I've had an
hour's talk with her this afternoon.'

'Indeed?'

'Met her down in the Leggatt fields. I find she doesn't write
independently; just helps her father. What the help amounts to I can't
say. There's something very attractive about her. She quoted a line or
two of Tennyson; the first time I ever heard a woman speak blank verse
with any kind of decency.'

'She was walking alone?'

'Yes. On the way back we met old Yule; he seemed rather grumpy, I
thought. I don't think she's the kind of girl to make a paying business
of literature. Her qualities are personal. And it's pretty clear to
me that the valley of the shadow of books by no means agrees with her
disposition. Possibly old Yule is something of a tyrant.'

'He doesn't impress me very favourably. Do you think you will keep up
their acquaintance in London?'

'Can't say. I wonder what sort of a woman that mother really is? Can't
be so very gross, I should think.'

'Miss Harrow knows nothing about her, except that she was a quite
uneducated girl.'

'But, dash it! by this time she must have got decent manners. Of course
there may be other objections. Mrs Reardon knows nothing against her.'

Midway in the following morning, as Jasper sat with a book in the
garden, he was surprised to see Alfred Yule enter by the gate.

'I thought,' began the visitor, who seemed in high spirits, 'that you