ey, watching her, and to be aware that she was still under the
surveillance of his eye. For some months past now she had neither
seen Colonel Osborne, nor heard from him. He had certainly by his
folly done much to produce the ruin which had fallen upon her; but it
never occurred to her to blame him. Indeed she did not know that he
was liable to blame. Mr. Outhouse always spoke of him with indignant
scorn, and Nora had learned to think that much of their misery was
due to his imprudence. But Mrs. Trevelyan would not see this, and,
not seeing it, was more widely separated from her husband than
she would have been had she acknowledged that any excuse for his
misconduct had been afforded by the vanity and folly of the other
man.

Lady Rowley had written to have a furnished house taken for them
from the first of April, and a house had been secured in Manchester
Street. The situation in question is not one which is of itself very
charming, nor is it supposed to be in a high degree fashionable; but
Nora looked forward to her escape from St. Diddulph's to Manchester
Street as though Paradise were to be re-opened to her as soon as she
should be there with her father and mother. She was quite clear now
as to her course about Hugh Stanbury. She did not doubt but that she
could so argue the matter as to get the consent of her father and
mother. She felt herself to be altogether altered in her views of
life, since experience had come upon her, first at Nuncombe Putney,
and after that, much more heavily and seriously, at St. Diddulph's.
She looked back as though to a childish dream to the ideas which had
prevailed with her when she had told herself, as she used to do so
frequently, that she was unfit to be a poor man's wife. Why should
she be more unfit for such a position than another? Of course there
were many thoughts in her mind, much of memory if nothing of regret,
in regard to Mr. Glascock and the splendour that had been offered
to her. She had had her chance of being a rich man's wife, and had
rejected it,--had rejected it twice, with her eyes open. Readers
will say that if she loved Hugh Stanbury with all her heart, there
could be nothing of regret in her reflections. But we are perhaps
accustomed in judging for ourselves and of others to draw the
lines too sharply, and to say that on this side lie vice, folly,
heartlessness, and greed,--and on the other honour, love, truth, and
wisdom,--the good and the bad each in its own