ing and very
disenchanting! From a liberal and generous patron, you suddenly discover
yourself transformed into a dubious debtor. All the halo that has
surrounded your taste is changed for a chill atmosphere of suspicion
and distrust. The tradesfolk, whose respectful voices never rose above
a whisper in the hall, now grew clamorous in the antechamber; and more
than once did they actually obtrude themselves in person within those
charmed precincts inhabited by Lady Hester.

What had become of Miss Dalton? where could she be all this while? Had
not Mr. Jekyl called? what was he about that he had not "arranged" with
all these "tiresome creatures"? Was there no one who knew what to do?
Was not Captain Onslow, even, to be found? It was quite impossible that
these people could be telling the truth; the greater number, if not all
of them, must have been paid already, for she had spent a world of
money latterly "somehow." Ce'lestine was charged with a message to this
effect, which had a result the very opposite to what it was intended;
and now the noisy tongues and angry accents grew bolder and louder.
Still none came to her rescue; and she was left alone to listen to the
rebellious threatenings that murmured in the courtyard, or to read
the ill-spelled impertinences of such as preferred to epistolize their
complaints.

The visitors who found their way to the drawing-room had to pass through
this motley and clamorous host; and, at each opening of the door, the
sounds swelled loudly out.

More than once she bethought her of Sir Stafford; but shame opposed the
resolution. His liberality, indeed, was boundless; and therein lay
the whole difficulty. Were the matter one for discussion or angry
remonstrance, she could have adventured it without a dread. She could
easily have brought herself to confront a struggle, but was quite
unequal to an act of submission. Among the numerous visitors who now
thronged the salons, Lord Norwood, who had just returned from his
shooting excursion in the Maremma, was the only one with whom she had
anything like intimacy.

"I am but a poor counsellor in such a case," said he, laughing. "I was
never dunned in my life, personally, I mean, for I always take care not
to be found; and as to written applications, I know a creditor's seal
and superscription as well as though I had seen him affix them. The very
postmark is peculiar."

"This levity is very unfeeling at such a moment," said Lady Hester,
an