ed more
than doubtful when he had been plucked at his university--the
inhabitants of Redcross did not, as a rule, pretend to be judges in such
matters. What they did know, because it had oozed out some time before,
was that Cyril Carey, though a banker's son, was lamentably weak in
arithmetic, and his handwriting would have been held a disgrace to any
shop-boy.

Money was required to start lads in the world in the humblest fashion.
Ned Hewett wanted an outfit, and if possible furniture for his
station-house, that he might not begin on credit. Even girls, though
they had been a good deal set aside in such consideration, could not
enter on an independent career without money any more than boys could.
The Millars were therefore thankful that Mrs. Millar had a little money
of her own, not above a hundred and fifty pounds a year, settled upon
her from the first, by one of those marriage contracts which are so hard
to break, and she could use it to supply what was needed for the girls,
who were going into the world with such dauntless spirits and light
hearts.

CHAPTER VII.

ROSE GOES WEST AND ANNIE GOES EAST.

In the end it was settled, to Annie and Rose's great satisfaction, and
no less to the temporary relief of Dora and May's quaking hearts, that
the two former were to take the first plunge into unknown waters. If
things had been as they were formerly, and there had been leisure to
spare from rougher rubs for highly delicate considerations, it might, as
has been hinted, have been held that Dora should have been the sister
selected to go away from Redcross--at least for a time.

But a great deal had happened since Tom Robinson's unsuccessful suit and
all connected with it had been in honour hushed up. People had too many
weighty matters to think of to keep in mind that small sentimental
episode between a couple of young people.

Rose's fate was chalked out from the first. She was to be an
artist--that went without saying. She had certainly artistic talent, she
might have genius. But though she had been tolerably well trained so
far, by a good drawing-master at Miss Burridge's, and by the lessons she
had received from the wandering exhibitor at the Academy and the
Grosvenor, neither she nor her family could be sufficiently infatuated
to imagine she wanted no more teaching. Their conceptions of art might
be crude, and their faith in Rose unbounded, but they did not suppose
that she had only to open her portfo