l those things enable one to live a better and fuller
life. Oh, how cruel that I--that we are robbed in this way! You can have
no idea how terrible a blow it was to me when I read that letter this
morning.'

She was on the point of confessing that she had swooned, but something
restrained her.

'Your father can hardly be sorry,' said Jasper.

'I think he speaks more harshly than he feels. The worst was, that until
he got your letter he had kept hoping that I would let him have the
money for a new review.'

'Well, for the present I prefer to believe that the money isn't all
lost. If the blackguards pay ten shillings in the pound you will get two
thousand five hundred out of them, and that's something. But how do you
stand? Will your position be that of an ordinary creditor?'

'I am so ignorant. I know nothing of such things.'

'But of course your interests will be properly looked after. Put
yourself in communication with this Mr Holden. I'll have a look into the
law on the subject. Let us hope as long as we can. By Jove! There's no
other way of facing it.'

'No, indeed.'

'Mrs Reardon and the rest of them are safe enough, I suppose?'

'Oh, no doubt.'

'Confound them!--It grows upon one. One doesn't take in the whole of
such a misfortune at once. We must hold on to the last rag of hope, and
in the meantime I'll half work myself to death. Are you going to see the
girls?'

'Not to-night. You must tell them.'

'Dora will cry her eyes out. Upon my word, Maud'll have to draw in her
horns. I must frighten her into economy and hard work.'

He again lost himself in anxious reverie.

'Marian, couldn't you try your hand at fiction?'

She started, remembering that her father had put the same question so
recently.

'I'm afraid I could do nothing worth doing.'

'That isn't exactly the question. Could you do anything that would sell?
With very moderate success in fiction you might make three times as much
as you ever will by magazine pot-boilers. A girl like you. Oh, you might
manage, I should think.'

'A girl like me?'

'Well, I mean that love-scenes, and that kind of thing, would be very
much in your line.'Marian was not given to blushing; very few girls are,
even on strong provocation. For the first time Jasper saw her cheeks
colour deeply, and it was with anything but pleasure. His words were
coarsely inconsiderate, and wounded her.

'I think that is not my work,' she said coldly, looking away.

'But su