the question as needing no reply; she sat there for real
things. "You know how all our anxieties, under mamma's will, have come
out. She had still less to leave than she feared. We don't know how we
lived. It all makes up about two hundred a year for Marian, and two for
me, but I give up a hundred to Marian."

"Oh, you weak thing!" her father kindly sighed.

"For you and me together," she went on, "the other hundred would do
something."

"And what would do the rest?"

"Can you yourself do nothing?" He gave her a look; then, slipping his
hands into his pockets and turning away, stood for a little at the
window she had left open. She said nothing more--she had placed him
there with that question, and the silence lasted a minute, broken by
the call of an appealing costermonger, which came in with the mild
March air, with the shabby sunshine, fearfully unbecoming to the room,
and with the small homely hum of Chirk Street. Presently he moved
nearer, but as if her question had quite dropped. "I don't see what has
so suddenly wound you up."

"I should have thought you might perhaps guess. Let me at any rate tell
you. Aunt Maud has made me a proposal. But she has also made me a
condition. She wants to keep me."

"And what in the world else _could_ she possibly want?"

"Oh, I don't know--many things. I'm not so precious a capture," the
girl a little dryly explained. "No one has ever wanted to keep me
before."

Looking always what was proper, her father looked now still more
surprised than interested. "You've not had proposals?" He spoke as if
that were incredible of Lionel Croy's daughter; as if indeed such an
admission scarce consorted, even in filial intimacy, with her high
spirit and general form.

"Not from rich relations. She's extremely kind to me, but it's time,
she says, that we should understand each other."

Mr. Croy fully assented. "Of course it is--high time; and I can quite
imagine what she means by it."

"Are you very sure?"

"Oh, perfectly. She means that she'll 'do' for you handsomely if you'll
break off all relations with me. You speak of her condition. Her
condition's of course that."

"Well then," said Kate, "it's what has wound me up. Here I am."

He showed with a gesture how thoroughly he had taken it in; after
which, within a few seconds, he had, quite congruously, turned the
situation about. "Do you really suppose me in a position to justify
your throwing yourself upon me?"

She waited