‘Yes; lady’s-maid. ‘Tis an honest profession,’ said Cytherea bravely. ‘But _you_, Cytherea?’ ‘Yes, I--who am I?’ ‘You will never be a lady’s-maid--never, I am quite sure.’ ‘I shall try to be, at any rate.’ ‘Such a disgrace--’ ‘Nonsense! I maintain that it is no disgrace!’ she said, rather warmly. ‘You know very well--’ ‘Well, since you will, you must,’ he interrupted. ‘Why do you put “inexperienced?”’ ‘Because I am.’ ‘Never mind that--scratch out “inexperienced.” We are poor, Cytherea, aren’t we?’ he murmured, after a silence, ‘and it seems that the two months will close my engagement here.’ ‘We can put up with being poor,’ she said, ‘if they only give us work to do.... Yes, we desire as a blessing what was given us as a curse, and even that is denied. However, be cheerful, Owen, and never mind!’ In justice to desponding men, it is as well to remember that the brighter endurance of women at these epochs--invaluable, sweet, angelic, as it is--owes more of its origin to a narrower vision that shuts out many of the leaden-eyed despairs in the van, than to a hopefulness intense enough to quell them. IV. THE EVENTS OF ONE DAY 1. AUGUST THE FOURTH. TILL FOUR O’CLOCK The early part of the next week brought an answer to Cytherea’s last note of hope in the way of advertisement--not from a distance of hundreds of miles, London, Scotland, Ireland, the Continent--as Cytherea seemed to think it must, to be in keeping with the means adopted for obtaining it, but from a place in the neighbourhood of that in which she was living--a country mansion not twenty miles off. The reply ran thus:-- KNAPWATER HOUSE, August 3, 1864. ‘Miss Aldclyffe is in want of a young person as lady’s-maid. The duties of the place are light. Miss Aldclyffe will be in Budmouth on Thursday, when (should G. still not have heard of a place) she would like to see her at the Belvedere Hotel, Esplanade, at four o’clock. No answer need be returned to this note.’ A little earlier than the time named, Cytherea, clothed in a modest bonnet, and a black silk jacket, turned down to the hotel. Expectation, the fresh air from the water, the bright, far-extending outlook, raised the most delicate of pink colours to her cheeks, and restored to her tread a portion of that elasticity which her past troubles, and thoughts of Edward, had well-nigh taken away. She entered the vestibule, and went to the window of the bar. ‘Is Miss Aldclyffe here?’ she said to a nicely-dressed barmaid in the foreground, who was talking to a landlady covered with chains, knobs, and clamps of gold, in the background. ‘No, she isn’t,’ said the barmaid, not very civilly. Cytherea looked a shade too pretty for a plain dresser.