"But the young man could not deny his principles, and would not deny his selfishness; so Lady ---- sent Mimi from her, obtaining her a good position in one of the best schools at Brighton, begging the lady principal, an old friend of her own, to keep upon the young girl a watch that might almost be called a guard. She remained there a few months, and then, one fine morning, was suddenly missing, and Lady ---- received a note from her, posted in London, to say that it was useless to struggle longer; Herbert was bitterly unhappy and disappointed in her, reflected on her want of love and courage, and that she, Mimi, had chosen her part, and meant to see if one could not honestly live one's frank life in the London of to-day. "Lady ----'s expostulations with her son were useless. 'I like what you have taught me, mother, and my conscience is in the matter.' "And the same delicate conscience prevented him from supporting Mimi pecuniarily. He said, and she confirmed, that there should be no tie between them but love--that no other gift was fitting from one to the other. The woman of the future would have no need of protection, or to barter herself for care and a home; she would love out of a sphere of fine, grand independence, self-reliance--so would and should Mimi. Poor girl! her sphere of independence has been anything but grand and fine: a life in shifting, third-rate lodgings, under an alias, for, keeping her maiden style, it was simply impossible with her means to secure anywhere a reputable shelter, singing in concerts to support herself, and getting now and then a few lessons to give where people don't inquire too closely if they can secure good teaching cheaply, but bereft of all friends save a few pitying ones who now and then come to her relief, with no young brightness in her life, separated from her children, for she has three or four who are inexpensively taken care of at a farm in Cumberland, at a distance too great for her to see them save for a short autumn holiday; seeing Herbert sometimes only at very long intervals, for he goes abroad frequently for long absences, and leaves her with scanter ceremony than most men bestow upon a faithful dog--the mean-spirited good-for-naught!--shabbily clad, and living, like a rock hermit, on bread, fruit, and a salad, to make the money cover as far as may her own and her children's simplest needs. One can't wonder that Lady ----'s beautiful hair has turned from lustrous brown to snowy white in these few years, or that she should be tormented, as Mr. Feldwick says she is, with remorse lest she be to blame for the miserable warping of her son, and the catastrophe of Mimi's existence. She would be glad to come to Mimi's aid and that of her grandchildren, but that Mimi never permits unless she is in _extremis_, having, as she says, taken her lot with full warning from Lady ----; and Mimi has a helper who asks nothing more than to succor