“I don’t want, I say, to dictate to you. I don’t want you to give up anything that is important for your happiness. But I have given up my people for you, Nancy--” “Then go back to your people, and have done with it!” cried Nancy, throwing herself free from his arm, to which she had been clinging, and pushing him from her. Arthur was so startled to find himself driven to the edge of the pavement by this energetic impulse, that even the power of speech seemed taken from him. And what was there to say? CHAPTER XIII. Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Curtis settled down in a day or two into No. 6, Rose Villas, where Nancy had her two maids to manage, and all that had seemed to her most delightful and desirable in life. The little drawing-room was not a particularly genial place in winter weather; the carpet was covered with a white linen cloth tightly strained, there were white muslin curtains at the windows, the walls were white and gold, after the approved fashion of little drawing-rooms in little villas. All this, if it was very clean-looking, as Nancy said, was chilly in December, and the little fireplace was so near the long French window, and both were so near the door, that the room was draughty, and scarcely so cosy as might have been desired. There was a piano in it, upon which Nancy could not play, though she had received lessons on the piano during those five quarters in which she had been at school; and a work-table, which she did not employ much for work; but no books, nor any pictures on the white-and-gold walls. When Arthur had exerted himself in the re-arrangement of the furniture, which Nancy did not go into with any enthusiasm--for she was still of opinion that a row of chairs set against the wall were “in their proper place,” and that to disturb them was almost an immorality--the discovery that he had nothing to do pressed with more and more force upon him. What did he want with anything to do? Nancy thought. Was it not the best thing in the world not to require to do anything, the true sign of being a gentleman? A certain scorn of people who worked for their living had taken possession of Mrs. Arthur Curtis. Why should they give themselves airs when they were all as one as a bricklayer, working for their bread? But anyone could see that Arthur was a gentleman. It is to be hoped that gentlemen in general were more at their ease under the burden of their gentility than Arthur. It was not--let no one be deceived--that he wanted to work. Work when he had read with Mr. Eagles had been extremely irksome to the young man. It was true he had not remained very long to try it, but he had not loved his studies, especially under the spur of the sharp and urgent “coach.” There are other things, however, which young men think of when they talk of having “something to do,” which do not tell very much in an industrial point of view. In his natural condition and at home, Arthur had many occupations. He shot, he hunted, he rode about the