ad seemed safe then, so far as the solidity of the Pennycuicks'
position was concerned. They had imposed upon him with their careless
splendour; they had misled him by their condonation of the marriage,
which restored Mary to her privileges as a daughter of the house; most
thoroughly had they taken him in by that voluntary wedding gift of five
hundred pounds. With his habit--which he took to be the general
habit--of getting all he could and giving nothing that he was not
obliged to give, he could not understand the airy flinging away of all
that money, when there was no "call" for it, only as a proof that Mr
Pennycuick had more than he needed for all the legitimate claims on
him. And the old man had said, again and again, that his daughters
would share and share alike in whatever he had to leave.

When Mr Bentley, the new parson, came--young, sincere,
self-sacrificing, devoted, a poor preacher and a hard worker, who
refused to batten on Redford bounty--all the old furniture of the
parsonage was made over to him (on time payment), and the Goldsworthys
began life in Melbourne on the basis of a rich wife. It was surprising
how the legend grew amongst his set that Mr Goldsworthy had a rich
wife. That she might dress the part on all occasions, so that there
would be no mistake about it, the family-provided trousseau was added
to; it was also subtracted from, for the simplicity that was her taste
and distinction was hateful in his sight. When she looked "common" in a
cotton gown, she lowered his dignity in the world and amongst his
professional fellows--supposed to be so envious of it, in spite of her
red face. Deb had had to suffer the shock of seeing her sister in silk
of a morning more than once, and it had been reported to her--though
she did not believe it--that Mary wore a jewelled necklace to church on
Sundays. Deb did not go to Bennet's church, which was, fortunately, a
long way from her suburban-villa home.

And she had been to his Melbourne house but twice. On her first visit
she had penetrated to Mary's room, and been horrified to find the
husband's clothes hung up in it from her door-pegs, and his razors and
brushes mixed up with her things on her dressing-table. The arrangement
in the country parsonage was to be accounted for; to find it here, made
deliberately and of MALICE PREPENSE, was to see what gulfs now yawned
between Mary's old life and the new one. Deb reached forth for a comb,
and drew back her hand as