opened my eyes to it at last; and here I am,
come to seek my fortune, as we used to say long ago, which, after all,
seems a far nicer thing in a fairy book than when reduced to a fact."

Dolly gave a little short cough, to cover a faint sigh which escaped
her; for she, too, knew something about seeking her fortune, and that
the search was not always a success.

"And what are you thinking of doing, Tony?" asked she, eagerly.

"Like all lazy good-for-nothings, I begin by begging; that is to say, I
have been to a great man this morning who knew my father, to ask him to
give me something,--to make me something."

"A soldier, I suppose?"

"No; mother won't listen to that She 's so indignant about the way they
treated my poor father about that good-service pension,--one of a race
that has been pouring out their blood like water for three centuries
back,--that she says she 'd not let me accept a commission if it were
offered to me, without it came coupled with a full apology for the wrong
done my father; and as I am too old for the navy, and too ignorant for
most other things, it will push all the great man's ingenuity very close
to find out the corner to suit me."

"They talk a deal about Australia, Tony; and, indeed, I sometimes think
I 'd like to go there myself. I read in the 'Times' t' other day that
a dairy-maid got as much as forty-six pounds a-year and her board; only
fancy, forty-six pounds a-year! Do you know," added she, in a cautious
whisper, "I have only eighteen pounds here, and was in rare luck too,
they say, to get it."

"What if we were to set out together, Dolly?" said he, laughing; but a
deep scarlet flush covered her face, and though she tried to laugh too,
she had to turn her head away, for the tears were in her eyes.

"But how could _you_ turn dairymaid, Dolly?" cried he, half
reproachfully.

"Just as well, or rather better, than _you_ turn shepherd or
gold-digger. As to mere labor, it would be nothing; as to any loss of
condition, I 'd not feel it, and therefore not suffer it."

"Oh, I have no snobbery myself about working with my hands," added he,
hastily. "Heaven help me if I had, for my head would n't keep _me_; but
a girl's bringing up is so different from a boy's; she oughtn't to do
anything menial out of her own home."

"We ought all of us just to do our best, Tony, and what leaves us less
of a burden to others,--that's my reading of it; and when we do that, we
'll have a quiet consci