rious living as a writer
for a penny paper would be by no means so desirable a connection.
Stanbury, as he thought of this, declared to himself that he would
not care two straws for Trevelyan in the matter, if he could see his
way without other impediments. But the other impediments were there
in such strength and numbers as to make him feel that it could not
have been intended by Fate that he should take to himself a wife.
Although those letters of his to the Daily Record had been so
pre-eminently successful, he had never yet been able to earn by
writing above twenty-five or thirty pounds a month. If that might be
continued to him he could live upon it himself; but, even with his
moderate views, it would not suffice for himself and family.

He had told Trevelyan that while living as an expectant barrister he
had no means of subsistence. In this, as Trevelyan knew, he was not
strictly correct. There was an allowance of L100 a year coming to him
from the aunt whose residence at Exeter had induced him to devote
himself to the Western Circuit. His father had been a clergyman with
a small living in Devonshire, and had now been dead some fifteen
years. His mother and two sisters were still living in a small
cottage in his late father's parish, on the interest of the money
arising from a life insurance. Some pittance from sixty to seventy
pounds a year was all they had among them. But there was a rich aunt,
Miss Stanbury, to whom had come considerable wealth in a manner most
romantic,--the little tale shall be told before this larger tale
is completed,--and this aunt had undertaken to educate and place
out in the world her nephew Hugh. So Hugh had been sent to Harrow,
and then to Oxford,--where he had much displeased his aunt by not
accomplishing great things,--and then had been set down to make his
fortune as a barrister in London, with an allowance of L100 a year,
his aunt having paid, moreover, certain fees for entrance, tuition,
and the like. The very hour in which Miss Stanbury learned that her
nephew was writing for a penny newspaper she sent off a dispatch to
tell him that he must give up her or the penny paper. He replied by
saying that he felt himself called upon to earn his bread in the only
line from which, as it seemed to him, bread would be forthcoming. By
return of post he got another letter to say that he might draw for
the quarter then becoming due, but that that would be the last. And
it was the last.

Sta