Yet, despite the outward prosperity of her new life, she found the bread of dependence so bitter that, but for Doris, she would have tried to earn her living. She was not highly educated, and could only have hoped for a subordinate post; but it was so galling never to have a garment to wear or a coin to spend, save through her aunt's bounty, that she often thought she would be happier as a nurse or parlourmaid. She mixed as an equal with rich and fashionable people, and had to talk as if want of money were absolutely unknown, though she could not even afford to buy her child a few sweets. She dared not ask her aunt for pocket-money, for she well knew that, though Miss Waller supplied her with fashionable clothes, it was only because she could not bear to be disgraced by shabby relations, and she secretly grudged every penny spent on her niece. Yet she dared not quarrel with her aunt, who was her only hope for a good education for her child. May was resolved that Doris should be so accomplished that, if needful, she could earn her bread. "Oh, if only I had not been so idle at school! If I had practised, and talked to Fräulein more!" poor May thought to herself, with unavailing regret, as the country roads flitted by. But she had little leisure for these sad thoughts. She had to brace herself to play her part in three crowded drawing-rooms, as if she had not a care in the world. Miss Waller was well pleased with the admiration her graceful niece always excited in society; and, thanks to May, the spinster received many invitations which might not otherwise have arrived. Miss Waller had a horror of being classed as a frump; instead, she prided herself on being exceedingly modern and up-to-date. "Just fancy that plain little Daisy Edgell being engaged to a Liverpool man with heaps of money!" she remarked as they rolled homewards. "We met him at the Hubbards' last year, if you remember." "I thought him very ugly and commonplace." "Perhaps--but so rich! I wish _you_ could be as lucky, May. What a pity there are so few really eligible men at Beachbourne!" "If there were ever so many, aunt, I couldn't bear to marry again." "And, pray, why not? You're only twenty-five; surely you are not going to mourn all your days for that precious husband of yours?" cried the spinster sharply. "It is just because my first marriage was so unhappy that I never wish to marry again. As to marrying for money--I couldn't do it!" "What nonsense! Isn't it done every day? It's all very fine to talk, May, but you know my income is only for my life, and I've hardly saved anything, so that when I die you'll be left without a home; and then what's to become of you and Doris? You _must_ marry again--there's nothing else for it."