"Spent it on herself? That's impossible! It was a very good income indeed for a solitary woman, and she lived very quietly." "You may get through a good deal of money even living quietly, when you don't deny yourself anything you can get. For instance, she never would drive one horse; she had been accustomed to a pair all her life." Augustus checked an oath on his very lips, and, instead of swearing according to his first impulse, observed with solemnity that he knew not how his mother had been able to reconcile such selfishness with her conscience, and hoped her last moments had not been troubled by remorse. "Oh, I don't think mamma felt anything of that kind," said Mrs. Dormer-Smith in her slow, gentle tones; "she was always complaining of other people's unreasonable expectations." The brother and sister fell silent for a while after this, each being immersed in private meditation. That very morning a circumstance had occurred which had put the last touch to Augustus's disappointment and exasperation. The Brighton schoolmistress had sent Miss Miranda Cheffington to London in the charge of a maid-servant, and the little girl had arrived at her aunt's house in a cab with her worldly possessions, namely, a small black trunk full of clothes, and a canary-bird in a cage. The schoolmistress wrote civilly, but firmly, to the effect that, after the lamented decease of the Honourable Mrs. Cheffington, she could not undertake to keep May any longer; feeling sure, by repeated experience, that all applications for payment made to Captain Cheffington would be in vain, and understanding that Mrs. Dormer-Smith declined to charge herself with her niece's education. Captain Cheffington had been violently angry, and had denounced the schoolmistress--Mrs. Drax--as an insolent, grasping, vulgar harpy. But Mrs. Drax was out of his reach, and there was May, thirteen years old, with a healthy appetite, and limbs rapidly outgrowing her clothes. Augustus continued to glare moodily at the square for some minutes. His sister leaned her cheek on her hand, and looked at the fire. At length Augustus, composing his face to a less savage expression, turned away from the window, sat down opposite to his sister, and said, pensively-- "We must arrange something for May, Pauline." "You must, indeed, Augustus." "We ought to consider her future." "Yes; I think you ought, Augustus." "The girl is at a hobbledehoy age. It's a perplexing position. So difficult to know what to do with her." "There is no age at which it is so awkward to dress a girl. I have sometimes regretted not having daughters; but upon my word there must be a dreadful amount of harass about their clothes between twelve and fifteen--or in some cases sixteen." "It's impossible for me to have her with me in Brussels. The way I live--am obliged to live _malgré moi_--she'd upset all my arrangements and habits. In short, you can see for yourself, Pauline, that it would be out of the question."