Maude had been Francis Tredethlyn’s wife more than six months, and the London season was at its fullest height, when an accidental meeting with Julia Desmond brought about that young lady’s restoration to her old position of confidante and companion to the pampered daughter of her dead father’s friend. The two women met in the Pantheon; and it was a terrible shock to Maude to see her old companion dawdling listlessly before a stall of toys, dressed in a shabby black silk and a doubtful bonnet, and attended by two ungainly girls in short petticoats and scarlet stockings. The proud spirit of the Desmonds had been crushed by the iron hand of necessity. In these perpetual duels between pride and poverty, the result seems only a question of time. Poverty must have the best of it, unless, indeed, death steps between the combatants to give poor pride a doubtful victory. Julia Desmond had carried her pride and anger away from the luxurious idleness of the Cedars, to nurse them in a London lodging. The only money she had in the world was a ten-pound note, left out of a sum which the liberal merchant had given her for the payment of a dressmaker’s bill. She had the jewels given her by Francis Tredethlyn--the diamonds which she had thrown at his feet in the little study at the Cedars, on the night of the amateur theatricals--but which the sober reflections of the following morning had prompted her to retain amongst her possessions. She had these, and upon these she might have raised a very considerable sum of money. But the angry Julia had no desire to raise money. A life of idleness in a London lodging was the very last existence to suit her energetic nature. She inserted an advertisement in the “Times” upon the very day after her departure from Twickenham, and she went on advertising until she succeeded in getting a situation as governess in a gentleman’s family. But ah! then came the bitterest of all her trials. She fancied that her life, wherever she went, would be more or less like her life at the Cedars. There would be a great deal more work, perhaps, there might be less luxury, less gaiety, but it would be the same kind of life: while on any day the lucky chance might arise, and the beauty of the Desmonds might win her some great prize in the matrimonial lottery.