the breath on which his very life must
depend. So it was with poor Georgey Longestaffe. Something must be done
at once, or it would be of no avail. Twelve years had been passed by
her since first she plunged into the stream,--the twelve years of her
youth,--and she was as far as ever from the bank; nay, farther, if she
believed her eyes. She too must strike out with rapid efforts, unless,
indeed, she would abandon herself and let the waters close over her
head. But immersed as she was here at Caversham, how could she strike
at all? Even now the waters were closing upon her. The sound of them
was in her ears. The ripple of the wave was already round her lips;
robbing her of breath. Ah!--might not there be some last great
convulsive effort which might dash her on shore, even if it were upon
a rock!

That ultimate failure in her matrimonial projects would be the same as
drowning she never for a moment doubted. It had never occurred to her
to consider with equanimity the prospect of living as an old maid. It
was beyond the scope of her mind to contemplate the chances of a life
in which marriage might be well if it came, but in which unmarried
tranquillity might also be well should that be her lot. Nor could she
understand that others should contemplate it for her. No doubt the
battle had been carried on for many years so much under the auspices
of her father and mother as to justify her in thinking that their
theory of life was the same as her own. Lady Pomona had been very open
in her teaching, and Mr Longestaffe had always given a silent
adherence to the idea that the house in London was to be kept open in
order that husbands might be caught. And now when they deserted her in
her real difficulty,--when they first told her to live at Caversham
all the summer, and then sent her up to the Melmottes, and after that
forbade her marriage with Mr Brehgert,--it seemed to her that they
were unnatural parents who gave her a stone when she wanted bread, a
serpent when she asked for a fish. She had no friend left. There was
no one living who seemed to care whether she had a husband or not. She
took to walking in solitude about the park, and thought of many things
with a grim earnestness which had not hitherto belonged to her
character.

'Mamma,' she said one morning when all the care of the household was
being devoted to the future comforts,--chiefly in regard to linen,--of
Mrs George Whitstable, 'I wonder whether papa has any inte