‘I’ve ‘eard that remark made a good many times, mum,’ he answered, candidly, ‘but as far as my individual opinion goes I don’t see anything remarkable about the captain that should single him out from the ruck of military men. Perhaps his hair is cropped a trifle closer, and his whiskers neater trimmed. I don’t deny either that there’s a _junny serquaw_, as my wife calls it, about the cut of his clothes, and that he has a high way with him, as if we were all upon a lower level, which I believe is uncommonly taking for some people, though I can’t say I ever was took by that kind of thing myself. I like a man who is my superior and yet takes care not to remind me of it. I can feel the superiority of that kind of man. I don’t want it put before me.’ Mrs. Dulcimer looked disappointed. ‘He is of a very high family,’ she said, ‘and enormously rich.’ ‘That’s always a satisfaction to one’s mind, mum.’ ‘Now don’t you think it would be a very grand thing if he were to marry your sister-in-law Clementina?’ Mr. Piper was not enthusiastic. ‘She might like it, Mrs. Dulcimer,’ he said. ‘That’s just according to her feelings. But it’s no business of mine to find husbands for my wife’s sisters.’ This was disheartening, but Mrs. Dulcimer was not going to renounce her project because Mr. Piper looked coldly upon it. Clementina stayed at the Park, and Bella enriched her with a great many dresses and other adornments of which she was beginning to be tired, or which were of a fashion that had become too general for a fine lady’s wear. Generosity in a person of Bella’s stamp is only another word for extravagance. Bella would have as soon contemplated cutting off her right hand as giving away anything she wanted herself. These gifts to Tina necessitated the purchase of new things, and already the second Mrs. Piper had begun to get into debt, and to feel that she had bills which must be paid next year, or at some more definite period. The three hundred a year which Mr. Piper had settled upon her in the fulness of his heart, as an all-sufficing income for dress and pocket money, was not nearly enough to supply the manifold wants of a young woman who had been brought up in poverty. Bella wanted everything, for everything was new to her. She ran riot in laces, and silks, and velvets, bric-à-brac for her boudoir, dainty stationery, devotional books, which were seldom read, but which looked well on her dressing-table, parasols, fans, slippers, albums, everything of the costliest. She was surprised to find how soon her ready money had melted away, and almost afraid to calculate how deeply she was in debt. But the burden weighed lightly upon her. It would be easy to get Mr. Piper to give her a cheque, when things got desperate. He might be surprised, perhaps, that she had not managed her allowance better; but he would not have the strength of mind to refuse her the money.