"Our own servants are only too wishful to remain with us. My mother has had her present cook eight years, and the last one was only induced to leave because a young man--a young man in quite a fair way of business--made her an offer of marriage. She had been here even longer than eight years--twelve I think it was, or thirteen. It was believed at the time that what first attracted the young man's attention to her was the many years that my mother had retained her in our household. I'm sure there are no circumstances under which my mother 'd consent to receive a young person who could give no proof of her trustworthiness and good conduct." "Do you mean that you can't engage me? It--it's a matter of life and death to me," exclaimed Mary; "pray let me see the lady!" "Your manner," said the married daughter, "is strange. Quite authoritative for your position!" She rose. "You'll find it helpful to be less haughty when you speak, less opinionated; your manner is very much against you. Oh, my word! no violence, if you please, miss!" "Violence?" gasped Mary; "I'm not violent. It was my last hope, that's all, and it's over. I wish you good-day." So much had happened in a few minutes--inside and out--that the roads were whitening rapidly and the flutter of snow had developed into a steady fall. At first she was scarcely sensible of it; the anger in her heart kept the cold out, and carried her along in a semi-rush. Words broke from her breathlessly. She felt that she had fallen from a high estate; that the independence of her life with Carew had been a period of dignity and power; that erstwhile she could have awed the dull-witted philistine who had humbled her. "The hateful woman! Oh, the wretch! To have to sue to a creature like that!" Well, she would starve now, she supposed, her excitement spending itself. She would die of starvation, like characters in fiction, or the people one read of in the newspapers; the newspapers called it "exposure," but it was the same thing; "exposure" sounded less offensive to the other people who read about it, that was all. The force of education is so strong that, much as she insisted on such a death, and close as she had approached to it, she was unable to realise its happening to her. She told herself that it must; the world was of a sudden horribly wide and empty; but for Mary Brettan actually to die like that had an air of exaggeration about it still. Pushing forward, she pondered on it, and the fact came close; the sensation of the world's widening about her grew stronger. She felt alone in the midst of illimitable space. There seemed nothing around her, nothing tangible, nothing to catch at. O God! how tired she was! she couldn't go on much further.