‘’Cause I’m a young lady, and they are little common village girls,’ was the reply, so unexpected, that even Miss Wynter’s eyes were opened wide, and her eyebrows were raised, as she heard it. ‘Indeed?’ she said. ‘And do you think you are really a young lady?’ ‘Not like you, yet,’ was the reply, ‘because I’m not old enough; but I shall be some time. Mamma says I’m so pretty I shall be sure to marry a gentleman; and I’m going to learn French and music.’ ‘Oh, indeed!’ drawled Magdalen. ‘You are going to marry a gentleman. What is a gentleman? Did your mother tell you that, too?’ ‘She didn’t tell me, but I know,’ replied Ada. ‘Well, suppose you tell me. Then I shall know, too.’ ‘A gentleman is rich, and has a large house, and——’ ‘Does a gentleman keep a shop?’ ‘No.’ ‘Then what is your father?’ ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Magdalen proceeded, in a languid, indifferent way, to draw her out. In a very short time she had gauged the depths, or rather the shallows, of Ada Dixon’s mind. It contained nothing but shallows then; it was destined never to contain anything else, henceforth and for evermore. From that day she was more or less Miss Wynter’s _protegée_ and plaything. Sometimes the connection flagged; sometimes when the winter weather was bitter, or the summer heats overpowering, when Miss Wynter was indolent, and when Ada was promoted to a boarding-school, there were gaps in the intercourse; but the acquaintance was never broken off, and it was not without its influence in both lives, and on more destinies than theirs alone. The Dixons were well-to-do, prosperous, conventional tradespeople, more retail than wholesale in every sense of the words. He had grown fat by charging sixpence where other people charged fivepence, by a consistent practice of telling many lies during the week, and diligently repenting him of his transgressions and bewailing his sins twice every Sunday in the parish church. That is, he bewailed his sins with his mouth, and whenever bewailing happened to be printed in the Prayer-book; but he knew much better than the Prayer-book what was the way in which to get on in the world, and perhaps, if he had spoken out his whole mind, cleanly and honestly, would have said that since the Lord, by putting so much competition into the world, had made it such a hard business for folk to hold their heads above water, He must even excuse them from doing it in the best way they could.