handy housewife for a hard-worked
bread-winner. And now she was told that Mr. Hammond was not so poor as
she had thought. She would not be obliged to stint herself, and manage,
as she had supposed when she went about among the cottagers, taking
lessons in household economy. It was almost a disappointment.

She and Clara finished the packing that night, Mary being much too
excited for the possibility of sleep. There was not much to pack, only
one roomy American trunk--a trunk which held everything--a Gladstone bag
for things that might possibly be wanted in a hurry, and a handsome
dressing-bag, Maulevrier's last birthday gift to his sister.

Mary had received no gifts from her lover, save the plain gold
engagement ring, and a few new books sent straight from the publishers.
Clara took care to inform her young mistress that Miss Freeman's
sweetheart had sent her all manner of splendid presents, scent bottles,
photograph albums, glove boxes, and other things of beauty, albeit his
means were supposed to be _nil_. It was evident that Clara disapproved
of Mr. Hammond's conduct in this matter, and even suspected him of
meanness.

'He did ought to have sent you his photograph, Lady Mary,' said Clara,
with a reproachful air.

'I daresay he would have done so, Clara, but he has been photographed
only once in his life.'

'Lawk a mercy, Lady Mary! Why most young gentlemen have themselves
photographed in every new place they go to; and as Mr. Hammond has been
a traveller, like his lordship, I made sure he'd have been photographed
in knickerbockers and every other kind of attitude.'

Mary had not refrained from asking for her lover's portrait; and he had
told her that he had carefully abstained from having his countenance
reproduced in any manner since his fifteenth year, when he had been
photographed at his mother's desire.

'The present fashion of photographs staring out of every stationer's
window makes a man's face public property,' he told Mary. 'I don't want
every street Arab in London to recognise me.'

'But you are not a public man,' said Mary. 'Your photograph would not be
in all the windows; although, in my humble opinion, you are a very
handsome man.'

Hammond blushed, laughed, and turned the conversation, and Mary had to
exist without any picture of her lover.

'Millais shall paint me in his grand Reynolds manner by-and-by,' he told
Mary.

'Millais! Oh, Jack! When will you and I be able to give a thousand o