Ruthlessly does that lady perform her appointed duty. Loud are her expressions of wonder at the triumphs of _some_ people; her bewilderment on perceiving the superb attire which _some_ people can procure out of a pittance of two guineas per week; her regret that on the occasion of _her_ benefit the 17th Prancers had held themselves disdainfully aloof from the theatre, though her Lady Douglas _had_ been compared to the performance of the same character by the great Siddons, and by judges _quite_ as competent as the Prancers; and anon, in the next breath, her inconsistent avowal of thankfulness to Providence that her dress-circle had been empty, rather than filled as was the dress-circle of Mademoiselle Pasdebasque. Lucy thought of Mrs. M’Grudder, who had at divers times taken upon herself the chaperonage of some timid young aspirant, and beneath whose ample wing, if rumour was to be trusted, the hapless neophyte had known a hard time. No, the dramatic profession at best had its trials; but life spent in the companionship of Mrs. M’Grudder would have been too bitter a martyrdom. This was the beginning of the end of Miss Alford’s professional career. She had pondered much upon Laurence Desmond’s evident dislike to her position, and had taken that dislike deeply to heart. The glamour was fast fading from the fairy dream of her childhood. She had played at Electra and Antigone--she had stood before her looking-glass, inspired, and radiant with passionate emotion, fancying herself Juliet or Pauline; and all her dreams had ended in--a page’s dress, and a foolish comic song. Mrs. Jerningham’s influence speedily completed the work of disenchantment; and before Tristram Alford had been dead a month, his daughter had bidden farewell to the stage--in no brilliant apotheosis of bouquets and clamorous chorus of enraptured dramatic critics, eloquent as Pythoness on tripod, but in the sad silence of her own lonely chamber. She had said her doleful good-bye to the dreams of her youth, and had begun the practical career of a woman who stands quite alone in the world, and who has no hope save in her own patient industry. “If I had any one to work for,” she thought, sadly, “it would not seem hard to me. But to toil and drudge in order that I may prolong my lonely life, and with no other end or aim----!”