As I mused over it, and over the desire for secrecy that seemed to be conveyed by the place where I had found it, the thought crossed my mind whether it could be some unacknowledged lover, whose addresses were being paid against the wishes of her parents. Yet somehow I could hardly fancy that to be very probable either. There was a stateliness and haughtiness about her that gave the impression of a person who would be most unlikely ever to condescend to anything so mean and underhand as a clandestine love affair; she would have too much self-respect and sense of dignity. Well! be the young man who he might, I had no clue to his identity or to his connection with her, and it was no use my bothering myself with vain speculations on the subject. At all events, she would have to get a new copy of his photograph, as I had no intention of returning the one that had fallen into my hands. And with that reflection I dismissed the matter from my mind, and applied myself to the more practical consideration of what my immediate future was to be. CHAPTER VII. A FEW LONDON PRICES. I have not, as yet, said anything about what I meant to do on reaching London, and how I intended to support myself; but it must not, therefore, be supposed that I had not carefully considered, and fully made up my mind upon that important matter. Various ways by which a young woman in my position might earn her livelihood had suggested themselves to me; and, after mature deliberation, I had selected the avocations of daily-governess, shop-assistant, or travelling-maid, as being those in which I was most likely to succeed.