Failing him, but the girl shuddered at the thought, there was the Professor ... rich men did not grow on every bush, and her tastes were expensive. The mother of Frank and Gay had been wealthy, and their father and his family comparatively poor, a fact greatly resented by Lossie, who had a mordant tongue, and was wont to describe the Lawless branch of the family as "the silk cloak," and hers as "the cotton lining." It was with angry, embittered heart that later in the afternoon she turned her steps homewards, bitterly comparing her lot with Gay's, for Becky Sharp's type is much commoner than is generally supposed--the type that can be good and happy (at a pinch) on five thousand a year, but _quite_ good, and _quite_ happy on ten and upwards, and Lossie was of that type. She had friends, of course, and admirers, who came to see her, George Conant much oftener than she wanted him, but a house without plenty of money, and a man at the head of it, is not half equipped for life and happiness. For the tiny establishment in South Street was run, if not ruled, by Aunt Lavinia (Chris's especial pal), who would greatly have preferred the more roomy comfort of Connaught Square, in which the Professor and Gay buried their unfashionable heads. Both Lossie's parents were dead, and Lavinia had given her sister's child a home, tackling each day the difficult problem of trying to love a singularly unloveable girl, though "Anyway, my dear, she's delightful to look at!" Lavinia would say confidentially to Gay, after some especially flagrant piece of selfishness on Lossie's part. Lavinia had a queer religion of her own (but not so queer when you come to reflect that nowadays real religion is found chiefly in those who do not profess any), and it was summed up in the love of humanity, and the law of human kindness. "Teach folks to love," she used to say; "teach 'em to keep on loving--the rest will follow. No soul was ever yet damned that knew how to love--it's in the loving, not the _being_ loved, that we find happiness. Have you ever noticed the courting couples about on Sundays and holidays, that if the girls are not pretty, they _look_ so? Love has done the trick--not new clothes, or getting themselves up, but just _loving_ something that's not themselves."