"But I needn't tell people who I am, auntie, if there's any reason why a nobleman's daughter shouldn't earn her living. I could call myself Miss Chudleigh--or Miss any thing--and I might earn more than twenty pounds a-year." "Nonsense, child; don't let me hear any more of such absurdity. What's to become of my silver, I should like to know, if you leave me? I consider it very unkind and heartless of you to talk of deserting me." "But I wouldn't leave you for the world, auntie, if I really am any use or any comfort to you," answered Cecil, tenderly; "only--sometimes I can't help thinking that I am a burden to you." "Wait till I tell you that you are a burden, Lady Cecil," replied the dowager severely. "I have been disappointed about you and Hector, and I don't deny that I have felt the disappointment very deeply; but--well, that's over, and I suppose I am to end my days in Dorset Square. It might have been all very different if the General had been tolerably prudent; however, all I have to say is, that if I were as poor as Job, no niece of mine should degrade herself by going out as a governess." Lady Cecil bowed her head to this decision, but she remembered, with a sigh, how many governesses she had seen in the households of her friends, who were infinitely less dependent than she was, and whose lives were infinitely happier than hers. The sordid cares of Dorset Square were heavier than usual this year, for her aunt's feeble health threw the weight of financial and housekeeping arrangements entirely upon Cecil; and to this were added the constant anxiety of the sick-room, the long summer days spent in the stifling atmosphere of a sunny drawing-room, whose windows were rarely opened from dawn to sunset, the tension of the mind kept always on the stretch to amuse or soothe a peevish invalid; and Lady Cecil bore all her trials with meek uncomplaining patience. She was very patient; and in the unbroken round of her daily duties she found very little time to think of her one great sorrow,--so little time that the shadow of the past grew dim, and dimmer, until she was able to remember Hector Gordon with perfect resignation to the fate that had separated her from him, and to hear his name spoken suddenly without a painful consciousness of the hot blood rushing to her cheeks.