coming; there would be scope for her there, and she would possibly
develop better than she had ever had a chance of doing before.

So everything was decided. The house in East Street was to be given
up, and most of its contents sold; as Julia's cottage was furnished
already with Aunt Jane's things, she need only take a few extras from
the home. The debts were to be paid as far as possible now, and the
small income was to be divided; part was to go as pin money to Mrs.
Polkington, the main part of the remainder to go to the debts, and a
very small modicum to come with the Captain to the cottage.

Julia was quite satisfied, and let it be apparent. This, with her
obvious cheerfulness, rather incensed Violet, who regarded the sale of
their effects as rather a disgrace, and Julia's plans for the future,
as a great one.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," she told her younger sister,
just before she left Marbridge. "I am positively ashamed to think you
belong to us. It will be nice to meet Norfolk people at the Palace or
somewhere, who have seen you tending your pigs and doing your washing.
It is such an unusual name; I can quite fancy some one being
introduced to mother and thinking it odd that her name should be the
same as some dirty cottage people."

"Well," Julia suggested, "why not change it? Such a trifle as a name
surely need not stand in our way; we have got over worse things than
that. Mother can be something else, or I can; mother had better do it;
father will forget who he is if I make a change."

"Don't be absurd," Violet said; "I only wish you could change it
though; I never want to write to you as Julia Polkington in case some
servant were to notice the address; one never knows how these things
come out."

"Don't write as that," her sister told her; "address me as 'Julia
Snooks' or anything else you like; I am not particular."

Violet did not take this as a serious suggestion; nevertheless, Julia
told Mr. Frazer on the platform at Marbridge that she and Violet had
been having a christening, and that she was now Julia Snooks. Mr.
Ponsonby said it was ridiculous, to which Julia replied--

"That is what I am myself."

Mrs. Polkington said it was foolish too, but she did not say so
vehemently; she felt that in the Frazer circle, especially at the
Palace where she would meet people from everywhere, she might possibly
come across some one who had heard of Julia. It was unlikely; still it
is a small wo