diture. Let nobody
dream that he can be somebody without having to pay for that
honour;--unless, indeed, he be a clergyman. When you go to a concert
at Buckingham Palace you pay nothing, it is true, for your ticket;
and a Cabinet Minister dining with you does not eat or drink more
than your old friend Jones the attorney. But in some insidious,
unforeseen manner,--in a way that can only be understood after much
experience,--these luxuries of fashion do make a heavy pull on a
modest income. Mrs. Hittaway knew this thoroughly, having much
experience, and did make her fight bravely. For Mr. Hittaway's income
was no more than modest. A few thousand pounds he had of his own when
he married, and his Clara had brought to him the unpretending sum of
fifteen hundred. But, beyond that, the poor official salary,--which
was less than what a decent grocer would make,--was their all.
The house in Warwick Square they had prudently purchased on their
marriage,--when houses in Warwick Square were cheaper than they are
now,--and there they carried on their battle, certainly with success.
But two thousand a year does not go very far in Warwick Square,
even though you sit rent free, if you have a family and absolutely
must keep a carriage. It therefore resulted that when Mr. and Mrs.
Hittaway went to Scotland, which they would endeavour to do every
year, it was very important that they should accomplish their
aristocratic holiday as visitors at the house of some aristocratic
friend. So well had they played their cards in this respect, that
they seldom failed altogether. In one year they had been the guests
of a great marquis quite in the north, and that had been a very
glorious year. To talk of Stackallan was, indeed, a thing of beauty.
But in that year Mr. Hittaway had made himself very useful in London.
Since that they had been at delicious shooting lodges in Ross and
Inverness-shire, had visited a millionaire at his palace amidst the
Argyle mountains, had been feted in a western island, had been bored
by a Dundee dowager, and put up with a Lothian laird. But the thing
had been almost always done, and the Hittaways were known as people
that went to Scotland. He could handle a gun, and was clever enough
never to shoot a keeper. She could read aloud, could act a little,
could talk or hold her tongue; and let her hosts be who they would
and as mighty as you please, never caused them trouble by seeming
to be out of their circle, and on that a