The means placed at her disposal for her own expenditure had been exceedingly limited. It was her own desire they should be so, and Lady Dorothea had made no opposition to her wishes. Beyond this she had nothing, save a sum of five thousand pounds payable at her uncle's death. By strictest economy--privation, indeed--she thought that she could save about a hundred pounds a year of this small income; but to do so would require the sale of both her horses, retaining only the pony and the little carriage, while her dress should be of the very simplest and plainest. In what way she should best employ this sum was to be for after consideration. The first thought was how to effect the saving without giving to the act any unnecessary notoriety. She felt that her greatest difficulty would be old Catty Broon. The venerable housekeeper had all her life regarded her with an affection that was little short of worship. It was not alone the winning graces of Mary's manner, nor the attractive charms of her appearance that had so captivated old Catty; but that the young girl, to her eyes, represented the great family whose name she bore, and represented them so worthily. The title of the Princess, by which the Country people knew her, seemed her just and rightful designation. Mary realized to her the proud scion of a proud stock, who had ruled over a territory rather than a mere estate; how, then, could she bear to behold her in all the straits and difficulties of a reduced condition? There seemed but one way to effect this, which was to give her new mode of life the character of a caprice. “I must make old Catty believe it is one of my wild and wilful fancies,--a sudden whim,--out of which a little time will doubtless rally me. She is the last in the world to limit me in the indulgence of a momentary notion; she will, therefore, concede everything to my humor, patiently awaiting the time when it shall assume a course the very opposite.”