hearts and scrooin' their pocket-money is
unnatural, to say the least of it!" It was
unnatural and unpopular in Helmingham.
Mrs. Croke put such a screw on the cheese-
factor, that in the evening after his dealings
with her, that worthy filled the commercial
room at the Lion with strange
oaths and modern instances of sharp dealing
in which Mrs. Croke bore away the
palm; but she was highly indignant when
Lotty Croke's godmother bought her a
savings bank, a grey edifice, with what
theatrical people call a practicable chimney
down which the intended savings should be
deposited. Mrs. Whicher's dairymaid, who,
being from Ireland, and a Roman Catholic
in faith, was looked upon with suspicion,
not to say fear, in the village, and who
was regarded by the farmers as in constant,
though secret, communication with
the Pope of Rome and the Jesuit College
generally, declared that her mistress "canthered
the life out of her" in the matter of
small wages and much work; but Mrs.
Whicher's daughter, Emily, had more crimson
gowns, and more elegant bonnets,
with regular fields of poppies, and perfect
harvests of ears of corn growing out
of them, than any of her compeers, for
which choice articles the heavy bill of
Madame Morgan—formerly of Paris, now
of Brocksopp—was paid without a murmur.
"It's unnatral in a gell like Marian Ashurst
to think so much o' money and what it
brings," would be a frequent remark at
one of those private Helmingham institutions
known as "Thick teas." And then Mrs.
Croke would say, "And what like will a
gell o' that sort look to marry? Why a
man maun have poun's and poun's before
she'd say, ' yea' and buckle to!"

But that was a matter which Marian had
already decided upon.

CHAPTER IV. MARIAN'S CHOICE.

AT a time when it seemed as though
the unchildlike qualities which had
distinguished the child from her playmates and
coevals were intensifying and maturing in
the girl growing up, then, to all appearance,
hard, calculating, and mercenary,
Marian Ashurst fell in love, and thence-
forward the whole current of her being
was diverted into healthier and more natural
channels. Fell in love is the right
and the only description of the process, so
far as Marian was concerned. Of course
she had frequently discussed the great
question which racks the hearts of boarding
school misses, and helps to fill up the
spare time of middle-aged women, with her
young companions; had listened with outward
calmness and propriety, but with an
enormous amount of unshown cynicism, to
their simple gushings; and had said sufficient
to lead them to believe that she
joined in their fervent admiration of and
aspiration for young men with black eyes
and white hands, straight noses, and curly
hair. But all the time Marian was building
for herself a castle in the air, the proprietor
of which, whose wife she intended to be,
was a very different person from the hairdressers'
dummies whose regularity of feature
caused the hearts of her companions to
palpitate. The personal appearance of her
future husband had never given her an instant's
care; she had no preference in the
colour of his eyes or hair, in his height,
style, or even of his age, except she
thought she would rather he were old.
Being old, he was more likely to be generous,
less likely to be selfish, more likely to
have amassed riches and to be wealthy.
His fortune would be made, not to be
made; there would be no struggling, no
self-denial, no hope required. Marian's
domestic experiences caused her to hate
anything in which hope was required; she
had been dosed with hope without the
smallest improvement, and had lost faith
in the treatment. Marriage was the one
chance possible for her to carry out the
dearest, most deeply implanted, longest
cherished aspiration of her heart—the
acquisition of money and power. She knew
that the possession of the one led to the
other, from the time when she had saved
her schoolgirl pennies and had noticed the
court paid to her by her little friends, to
the then moment, when the mere fact of her
having a small stock of ready money, even
more than her sense and shrewdness, gave
her position in that impecunious household,
she had recognised the impossibility of
achieving even a semblance of happiness in
poverty. When she married, it should be
for money, and for money alone. In the
hard school of life in which she had been
trained she had learned that the prize she
was aiming at was a great one, and one
difficult to be obtained; but that knowledge
only made her the more determined
in its pursuit. The difficulties around her
were immense; in the narrow circle in
which she lived she had not any present
chances of meeting with any person likely
to be able to give her the position which
she sought, far less of rendering him
subservient to her wishes. But she waited