fancy had never been active, so that when
the one awful and overwhelming fact
existed, it was quite enough for her,
it swamped everything else, it needed not
to bring up any reinforcements to her
discomfiture. She was ready to go anywhere,
with Marian, to do anything which Marian
advised, or directed. The old house was
to be left, a new home was to be sought
for. A stranger was coming to be the
master where her husband's firm but
gentle rule had made itself loved, respected,
and obeyed, for so long; a stranger
was to sit in her husband's seat, and move
about the house where his step and his
voice were heard no more, listened for
no longer, not even now, in the first confused
moments of waking after the blessed
oblivion of sleep. And in that awful fact
all was included.

Poor Mrs. Ashurst cared little for the
linen and the china now. Whether they
should be packed up and removed to the
humble lodgings which were to be the next
home of herself and her daughter, or whether
Mr. Ashurst's successor should be asked to
take them at a valuation, were points which
she left to Marian's decision. She had not
any interest in anything of the kind now.
It was time that Marian's mind should be
made up on these and other matters; and
the girl, notwithstanding her premature
gravity and her habit of decision, found
her task difficult, in fact and sentiment.
Her mother was painfully quiescent, hopelessly
resigned. In every word and look
she expressed plainly that life had come to
a standstill for her, that she could no longer
feel any interest or take any active part
in its conduct; and thus she depressed
Marian very much, who had her own sense
of impending disappointment and imperative
effort, in addition to their common
sorrow, to struggle against.

Mrs. Ashurst and her daughter had seen
a good deal of the family at Woolgreaves,
since the day on which Marian's cherished
belief in the value and delight of wealth
had been strengthened by that visit to the
splendid dwelling of her father's old friend.
The young ladies had quite "taken to"
Mrs. Ashurst, and Mrs. Ashurst had almost
"taken to" them. They came into
Helmingham frequently, and never without
bringing welcome contributions from the
large and lavishly kept gardens at
Woolgreaves. They tried, in many girlish and
unskilful ways, to be intimate with
Marian; but they felt they did not succeed,
and only their perception of their uncle's
wishes prevented their giving up the
effort. Marian was very civil, very much
obliged for their kindness and attention;
but un-cordial, "un-get-at-able," Maud
Creswell aptly described it.

The condition of Mr. Ashurst's affairs
had not proved to be quite so deplorable as
had been supposed. There was a small
insurance of his life; there were a few
trifling sums due to him, which the debtors
made haste to pay, owing, indeed, to the
immediate application made to them by
Mr. Creswell, who interfered as actively as
unostentatiously on behalf of the bereaved
woman; altogether a little sum remained,
which would keep them above want, or the
almost equally painful effort of immediate
exertion to earn their own living, with
management. Yes, that was the qualification,
which Marian understood thoroughly,
understood to mean daily and hourly self-
denial, watchfulness, and calculation, and
more and worse than that—the termination
on her part of the hope of preventing her
mother's missing the material comforts,
which had been procured and preserved for
her, by a struggle whose weariness she
had never been permitted to comprehend.

The old house had been shabby and
poor, but it had been comfortable. It had
given them space and cleanliness, and
there was no vulgarity in its meagreness.
But the only order of lodgings to which
her mother and she could venture to aspire
was that which invariably combines the
absence of space and of cleanliness with the
presence of tawdriness and discomfort. And
this must last until Walter should be able
to rescue them from it. She could not
suffice to that rescue herself, but he would.
He must succeed! Had he not every
quality, every facility, and the strongest of
motives? She felt this—that, in her case,
the strongest motive would have been the
desire for success, per se; but in his the
strongest was his love of her. She recognised
this, she knew this, she admired it
in an abstract kind of way; when her
heart was sufficiently disengaged from
pressing care to find a moment for any
kind of joy, she rejoiced in it; but she
knew she could not imitate it—that was
not in her. She had not much experience
of herself yet, and the process of self-
analysis was not habitual to her; but she
felt instinctively that the feebler, more
selfish instincts of love were hers, its noble
influences, its profounder motives, her
lover's.

It was, then, to him she had to look, in