the time. A
person whom it was impossible to please. She had no idea of justice, or of
anything but her own comfort, and what amount of pleasure other people
could contribute to her day.

How she came to do anything for me at all was because she had been in love
with papa, and when he married poor mamma--a person of no family--and then
died, she offered to take me, and bring me up, just to spite mamma, she
has often told me. As I was only four I had no say in the matter, and if
mamma liked to give me up that was her affair. Mamma's father was a lord,
and her mother I don't know who, and they had not worried to get married,
so that is how it is poor mamma came to have no relations. After papa was
dead, she married an Indian officer and went off to India, and died, too,
and I never saw her any more--so there it is; there is not a soul in the
world who matters to me, or I to them, so I can't help being an
adventuress, and thinking only of myself, can I?

Mrs. Carruthers periodically quarrelled with all the neighbors, so beyond
frigid calls now and then in a friendly interval, we never saw them much.
Several old, worldly ladies used to come and stay, but I liked none of
them, and I have no young friends. When it is getting dark, and I am up
here alone, I often wonder what it would be like if I had--but I believe I
am the kind of cat that would not have got on with them too nicely--so
perhaps it is just as well. Only, to have had a pretty--aunt, say--to love
one--that might have been nice.

Mrs. Carruthers had no feelings like this; "stuff and nonsense,"
"sentimental rubbish," she would have called them. To get a suitable
husband is what she brought me up for, she said, and for the last years
had arranged that I should marry her detested heir, Christopher
Carruthers, as I should have the money and he the place.

He is a diplomat, and lives in Paris, and Russia, and amusing places like
that, so he does not often come to England. I have never seen him. He is
quite old--over thirty--and has hair turning gray.

Now he is master here, and I must leave--unless he proposes to marry me at
our meeting this afternoon, which he probably won't do.

However, there can be no harm in my making myself look as attractive as
possible under the circumstances. As I am to be an adventuress, I must do
the best I can for myself. Nice feelings are for people who have money to
live as they please. If I had ten thousand a year, or even five, I