'My father--of course I owe him a great deal in the way of duty and love; but he owes me something for letting me have my own way all my life, bringing me up with the notion that I should be an heiress, and then disappointing me by marrying a woman whom I utterly despise. Lady Mary--I owe her nothing whatever, beyond the common proper treatment that one must give to every one; she, on the contrary, owes me compensation for marrying my father when I am sure he didn't want her, and certainly I did not. 'Colonel Vaughan--I don't owe him anything beyond a little improvement in my style of singing and drawing; yes, I owe him a heavy debt of gratitude for not proposing for me instead of Wilhelmina, for assuredly I should have married him, and he owes me something for making a fool of me. Wilhelmina--I owe her a good deal, firstly, for despising her, laughing at her, ridiculing her--and she all the time better than I was, for she never retaliated--and secondly, for trying to prejudice the colonel against her. Harold--I owe him the love of a sister, and he owes me nothing as yet; here I am decidedly debtor. The poor, of course, wherever one is, one owes them a great debt of Christian charity and love; and I must confess that they are not quite so well seen to as when Gladys was my almoner; but then she is here again to see to them, and that, on her own responsibility, and it is Lady Mary's place to care for them now. 'On the other hand, Serena--I owe her everything; all my few good thoughts, words and works. She owes me nothing. Mr Jones, ditto; I am wholly creditor in London: the poor, the ragged schools, I owe them every farthing I can give, for they want it, and have few to help them. I feel almost sure I should be best in London. Rowland Prothero, I owe him compensation for my great, unpardonable rudeness and pride; I am more ashamed of that one action than of any other. He so superior to me in every way, but the mere accident of birth.' Thus far Freda got in her arithmetic. But Rowland seemed to open a new rule, farther on in Butler than addition and substraction. In short, she found herself lost in the maze of fractions, and could not extricate herself. When she jumped up from her easy-chair, she was trying to reduce the following complex fractions, into one simple one, and entirely failed.