A WAIF’S PROGRESS BY THE SAME AUTHOR Crown 8vo. 2_s._ each. =Goodbye, Sweetheart!= =Cometh up as a Flower.= =Joan.= =Belinda.= =Dr. Cupid.= =Not Wisely but Too Well.= =Red as a Rose is She.= =Alas!= =Seylla or Charybdis?= =Mrs. Bligh.= =Second Thoughts.= =A Beginner.= =Dear Faustina.= =Nancy.= =The Game and the Candle.= =Foes in Law.= Crown 8vo. 6_s._ =Lavinia.= Crown 8vo. 6_s._ LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD. A WAIF’S PROGRESS BY RHODA BROUGHTON London MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES. A WAIF’S PROGRESS CHAPTER I “Well?” she asked. From the other end of the breakfast-table he returned--“Well?” and for several minutes this exchange of monosyllables seemed going to be the end--it was not quite the beginning--of the conversation that had sprung from a letter, and to the perusal or reperusal of that letter Mrs. Tancred had returned. “Here is another instance of Felicity’s talent for laying her cuckoo’s egg in other people’s nests!” she said presently with a dryish smile. “There never was a woman who did more good--by proxy--than your sister.” Mr. Tancred gave as much acquiescence as lay in silence to his wife’s indictment. If you are credited with having married a woman for her money, and can never for one whole minute forget it, you must acquiesce in many statements from which you differ far more widely than he did from the one in question. “Why cannot she keep the girl herself?” “Because Tom has put his foot down.” This time both smiled; laughed out, indeed. “That convenient foot!” “It does not usually come down very heavily upon a pretty woman.” “Who says that she is pretty?”--with a touch of quickness. “I thought you did, or Felicity--or--some one.” “I do not think that there is any allusion to her personal appearance. Now, what has become of my spectacles?”--embarking on that exasperating chronic chase which becomes in time the only species of sport left open to the elderly.