respectable.

"I don't know what you were then, Mrs Lupex," said Eames; "but you're
young enough now for anything."

"Mr Eames, I'd sell all that remains of my youth at a cheap rate,--at
a very cheap rate, if I could only be sure of--"

"Sure of what, Mrs Lupex?"

"The undivided affection of the one person that I loved. That is all
that is necessary to a woman's happiness."

"And isn't Lupex--"

"Lupex! But hush, never mind. I should not have allowed myself to
be betrayed into an expression of feeling. Here's your friend Mr
Cradell. Do you know I sometimes wonder what you find in that man to
be so fond of him." Miss Spruce saw it all, and heard it all, and
positively resolved upon moving herself to those two small rooms at
Dulwich.

Hardly a word was exchanged between Amelia and Eames before dinner.
Amelia still devoted herself to Cradell, and Johnny saw that that
arrow, if it should be needed, would be a strong weapon. Mrs Roper
they found seated at her place at the dining-table, and Eames could
perceive the traces of her tears. Poor woman! Few positions in life
could be harder to bear than hers! To be ever tugging at others for
money that they could not pay; to be ever tugged at for money which
she could not pay; to desire respectability for its own sake, but to
be driven to confess that it was a luxury beyond her means; to put
up with disreputable belongings for the sake of lucre, and then not
to get the lucre, but be driven to feel that she was ruined by the
attempt! How many Mrs Ropers there are who from year to year sink
down and fall away, and no one knows whither they betake themselves!
One fancies that one sees them from time to time at the corners of
the streets in battered bonnets and thin gowns, with the tattered
remnants of old shawls upon their shoulders, still looking as
though they had within them a faint remembrance of long-distant
respectability. With anxious eyes they peer about, as though
searching in the streets for other lodgers. Where do they get their
daily morsels of bread, and their poor cups of thin tea,--their
cups of thin tea, with perhaps a pennyworth of gin added to it, if
Providence be good! Of this state of things Mrs Roper had a lively
appreciation, and now, poor woman, she feared that she was reaching
it, by the aid of the Lupexes. On the present occasion she carved her
joint of meat in silence, and sent out her slices to the good guests
that would leave her, and to the bad