she was sure to be accompanied by some person whose
dress and manners marked him as belonging to the wealthy classes; and
at such times it generally happened,--according to the scandal-loving
shopkeepers,--that the last new book, the little "love" of a ring, or
the engraved scent-bottle was purchased.

An odd affair is Society. At its outposts are flaming swords for women,
though invisible to other eyes; men can venture without the lines, if
they only return at roll-call. Let a woman receive or visit one of the
_demi-monde_, (the technical use of the word is happily inapplicable
here,) and she might as well earn her living by her own labor, or do
any other disreputable thing; but her brother may pay court to the most
doubtful, and mothers will only shake their heads and say, "He _must_
sow his wild oats; he'll get over all that by-and-by."

So the beauty was still queen in her circle, and found admirers in
plenty. Perhaps she even enjoyed the freedom; for, to a woman of spirit,
the constraints of _taboo_ must be irksome at times. Not the Brahmin,
who fears to tread upon sole-leather from the sacred cow, and dares
not even think of the flavor of her forbidden beef, who keeps himself
haughtily aloof from the soldier and the trader, and walks sunward from
the pariah, lest the polluting shadow fall on his holy person, has a
more difficult and engrossing occupation than the woman of fashion, in
a country where the distinctions of rank are so purely factitious as in
ours. Miss Sandford's time was now her own; she was accountable to no
supervisor. Her brother was a cipher. He did not venture to intrude upon
her, except at seasons when she was at leisure, and in a humor to be
bored by him. Perhaps she looked back regretfully, but, as far as could
be told by her manner, she carried herself proudly, with the air of one
who says,--

"Better reign in hell than serve in heaven."

The observant reader has doubtless wondered before this, that Mr.
Sandford did not, in his emergency, apply to his old clerk, Fletcher,
for the money in exchange for the peculiar obligation of which mention
has been made. It is presuming too much upon Mr. Sandford's stupidity
to suppose that the idea had not frequently occurred to him. But he was
satisfied that Fletcher was one of the few who were making money in this
time of general distress, and that with every day's acquisition the
paper became more valuable; therefore, as it was his last trump, he