er in life? This episode
of the Jew would make it quite impossible for her again to contest the
question of the London house with her father. Lady Pomona and Mrs
George Whitstable would be united with him against her. There would be
no 'season' for her, and she would be nobody at Caversham. As for
London, she would hardly wish to go there! Everybody would know the
story of the Jew. She thought that she could have plucked up courage
to face the world as the Jew's wife, but not as the young woman who
had wanted to marry the Jew and had failed. How would her future life
go with her, should she now make up her mind to retire from the
proposed alliance? If she could get her father to take her abroad at
once, she would do it; but she was not now in a condition to make any
terms with her father. As all this gradually passed through her mind,
she determined that she would so far take Mr Brehgert's advice as to
postpone her answer till she had well considered the matter.

She slept upon it, and the next day she asked her mother a few
questions. 'Mamma, have you any idea what papa means to do?'

'In what way, my dear?' Lady Pomona's voice was not gracious, as she
was free from that fear of her daughter's ascendancy which had
formerly affected her.

'Well;--I suppose he must have some plan.'

'You must explain yourself. I don't know why he should have any
particular plan.'

'Will he go to London next year?'

'That depends upon money, I suppose. What makes you ask?'

'Of course I have been very cruelly circumstanced. Everybody must see
that. I'm sure you do, mamma. The long and short of it is this;--if I
give up my engagement, will he take us abroad for a year?'

'Why should he?'

'You can't suppose that I should be very comfortable in England. If we
are to remain here at Caversham, how am I to hope ever to get
settled?'

'Sophy is doing very well.'

'Oh, mamma, there are not two George Whitstables;--thank God.' She
had meant to be humble and supplicating, but she could not restrain
herself from the use of that one shaft. 'I don't mean but what Sophy
may be very happy, and I am sure that I hope she will. But that won't
do me any good. I should be very unhappy here.'

'I don't see how you are to find any one to marry you by going
abroad,' said Lady Pomona, 'and I don't see why your papa is to be
taken away from his own home. He likes Caversham.'

'Then I am to be sacrificed on every side,' said Georgey, stalking out