who are hardly
satisfied that another should be so great. It comes in the worship
of the people about the theatre, who have to tell me that I am their
god, and keep the strings of the sack from which money shall be
poured forth upon them. I know it is coming, and yet I am to marry
the stupid earl because I have promised him. And he thinks, too, that
his reflected honours will be more to me than all the fame that I can
earn for myself. To go down to his castle, and to be dumb for ever,
and perhaps to be mother of some hideous little imp who shall be the
coming marquis. Everything to be abandoned for that,--even Frank
Jones. But Frank Jones is not to be had! Oh, Frank Jones, Frank
Jones! If you could come and live in such a marble hall as I could
provide for you! It should have all that we want, but nothing more.
But it could not have that self-respect which it is a man's first
duty in life to achieve." But the thought that she had arrived at was
this,--that with all her best courtesy she would tell the Earl of
Castlewell to look for a bride elsewhere.

But she would do nothing in a hurry. The lord had been very civil
to her, and she, on her part, would be as civil to the lord as
circumstances admitted. And she had an idea in her mind that she
could not at a moment's notice dismiss this lord and be as she was
before. Her engagement with the lord was known to all the musical
world. The Mosses and Socanis spent their mornings, noons, and nights
in talking about it,--as she well knew. And she was not quite sure
that the lord had given her such a palpable cause for quarrelling as
to justify her in throwing him over. And when she had as it were
thrown him over in her mind, she began to think of other causes for
regret. After all, it was something to be Countess of Castlewell.
She felt that she could play the part well, in spite of all Lady
Augusta's coldness. She would soon live the Lady Augusta down into a
terrible mediocrity. And then again, there would be dreams of Frank
Jones. Frank Jones had been utterly banished. But if an elderly
gentleman is desirous that his future wife shall think of no Frank
Jones, he had better not begin by calling the father of that young
lady a ridiculous ass.

She was much disturbed in mind, and resolved that she would seek
counsel from her old correspondent, Frank's sister.

"Dearest Edith," she began,

I know you will let me write to you in my troubles. I am
in such a twitter of