man who, if he should ask her to be his wife, would not
have the means of supporting her. There were many, she knew, who
would condemn such a resolution as cold, selfish, and heartless. She
heard people saying so daily. She read in books that it ought to be
so regarded. But she declared to herself that she would respect the
judgment neither of the people nor of the books. To be poor alone, to
have to live without a husband, to look forward to a life in which
there would be nothing of a career, almost nothing to do, to await
the vacuity of an existence in which she would be useful to no one,
was a destiny which she could teach herself to endure, because it
might probably be forced upon her by necessity. Were her father to
die there would hardly be bread for that female flock to eat. As it
was, she was eating the bread of a man in whose house she was no more
than a visitor. The lot of a woman, as she often told herself, was
wretched, unfortunate, almost degrading. For a woman such as herself
there was no path open to her energy, other than that of getting a
husband. Nora Rowley thought of all this till she was almost sick of
the prospect of her life,--especially sick of it when she was told
with much authority by the Lady Milboroughs of her acquaintance that
it was her bounden duty to fall in love with Mr. Glascock. As to
falling in love with Mr. Glascock, she had not as yet quite made up
her mind. There was so much to be said on that side of the question,
if such falling in love could only be made possible. But she had
quite made up her mind that she would never fall in love with a poor
man. In spite, however, of all that, she felt herself compelled to
make comparisons between Mr. Glascock and one Mr. Hugh Stanbury, a
gentleman who had not a shilling.

Mr. Hugh Stanbury had been at college the most intimate friend of
Louis Trevelyan, and at Oxford had been, in spite of Trevelyan's
successes, a bigger man than his friend. Stanbury had not taken so
high a degree as Trevelyan,--indeed had not gone out in honours at
all. He had done little for the credit of his college, and had never
put himself in the way of wrapping himself up for life in the scanty
lambswool of a fellowship. But he had won for himself reputation as
a clever speaker, as a man who had learned much that college tutors
do not profess to teach, as a hard-headed, ready-witted fellow, who,
having the world as an oyster before him, which it was necessary that
h