A few tears ran down the poor lady’s cheeks and her girl made no motion to dry them. She stared above her mother’s head at the print of the fair Mrs. Oldfield as Lady Betty Modish which graced the wall. That was her own possession; her father’s gift, and perhaps it had set her thoughts in that train. She said nothing but indeed followed her dream as her mother rambled weakly on, till she happed on the phrase that the child had food and roof and sure that should content her. Then Diana flamed indignant, towering above her. “Food and roof? But it does not content me. How should it? I need more. Eighteen!— ’Twas my birthday a week since, and what happiness or good has one of the eighteen years brought me? That man feeds on us, lives on us, sponges on us, and would do worse. He will suck us dry as a China orange. No—I have my chance and tomorrow I go.” “Good God, and where?” She condescended then on explanations, and added that she knew a good old woman who would give her lodging and that the fine salary she expected would make all easy. The old woman in her head was Mrs. Scawen for she knew no other, and ’tis to be seen how wild and insubstantial were all her plans. Indeed her mother was not wrong in scenting much danger, and equally the girl was cruel enough, in her young rebellion, to these anxieties. But there it was, and if anything was needed to clinch her resolves it was when Mr. Fenton swaggered into the room in his spotted and blotched cloth coat, carrying his bloated face without shame and garnishing every sentence with a deep oath. The courtship had been short, or sure poor Mrs. Fenton had discovered what like he was in time to save her and her child. The two women hushed their talk like birds before a storm when he flung himself into the creaking armchair and came out with a proposal that the girl should dance and sing at a roister to be held at the coffee house in a week’s time. “There’s money in light toes and a pretty face, Lavinia,” says he, “and when I hear talk of these foreign beauties coming to twirl the money out of poor English pockets I think I know as pretty a girl at home and I’m much mistook unless she sits by me now.” Mrs. Fenton made an exclamation of horror.—A dancer! then silenced herself because Diana sat rigid. Thus they endured until the horrid man took himself off to his bottle below, and then the poor lady flung herself weeping into her girl’s arms and owned she could see no hope of better things. “But promise me, promise me, Di,” she cried, “that you won’t drag your father’s honoured name in the dirt of the stage. Sure you don’t forget his father was a landed gentleman in Sussex if he hadn’t diced his all away. Promise me this.”