"Miss Marjorum was devoted to my mother; and antagonistic as her nature was to me in all things, and blighting as was her influence upon the fond dream of my youth, I am bound to record that she was conscientious in carrying out her own idea of duty. Her idea of duty unhappily included no indulgence for youthful impulses, and she disapproved of every independent act of mine. "My evening absences puzzled her. "'I wonder you can like to be out nearly every evening when your mother is so ill,' she remarked severely, on my return to Connaught Place after that glimpse of paradise in Queen Square. "'If I could be of any use to my mother by staying at home, you may be sure I should not be out, Miss Marjorum,' I replied, rather stiffly. "'It would be a satisfaction to your mother to know you were under her roof, even when she is obliged to be resting quietly in her own room.' "'Unfortunately my mathematical coach lives under another roof, and I have to accommodate myself to his hours.' "This was sophistication; but it was true that I read mathematics with an ex-senior wrangler in South Kensington every other day. "'Do you spend _every_ evening with your coach?' asked Miss Marjorum, looking up suddenly from her needlework, and fixing me with her cold grey eye. "'Certainly not. You know the old saw--"All work and no play----"' "'And how do you amuse yourself when you are not at South Kensington? I did not think you knew many people in London.' "'That is because I know very few people whom you know. My chief friends are the friends of my college life--not the worthy bucolics of Suffolk.' Miss Marjorum sighed, and went on with her sewing. She delighted in the plainest of plain work--severest undergarments of calico or flannel. She had taken upon herself to supply my mother's poorer cottage-tenants with under-clothing--a very worthy purpose; but I could not help wishing she had deferred a little more to the universal sense of beauty in her contributions to the cottagers' wardrobes. Surely those prison-like garments must have appalled their recipients. My inexperienced eye noted only their ugliness in shape and coarseness of texture. I longed for a little trimming, a softer quality of flannel. "'I am afraid they must hurt the people who get them,' I said one day, when Miss Marjorum exhibited her bale of flannel underwear. "'They are delightfully warm, and friction promotes circulation and maintains the health of the skin,' she replied severely. 'I don't know what _more_ you would have.' "It irked me not a little to note Miss Marjorum's suspicious air when she discussed my evening occupations, for I knew she had more influence over my mother than any one living, and I fancied that she would not scruple to use that influence against me. I had lost her friendship long ago by childish rudenesses, which I looked back upon with regret, but which I could not obliterate from her memory by the studious civilities of later years.