"My wards all do well," he continued. "I am proud of their success. How do they manage it? Well, that's my affair--a secret of business, as it were. I am certain, my child, that you too will fall on your feet eventually. I should hardly be so interested in you if it were not highly probable. The first thing to be considered is a suitable situation. Plain young ladies are the most difficult to suit, unless they happen to be humble and unassuming. It pays them to boast of so-called Christian virtues. You, of course, do not belong to the plain sort. Possibly you are conscious of it, and I only tell you in order that you should learn to assert yourself. The main point in the art of living is to discriminate between self-assertion that is justified, and the reverse. You must, that is to say, gauge your own power according to circumstances. Now, young girls such as you----" At this moment the head clerk, tall and lank, again appeared at his elbow, with a portfolio. "At five o'clock the Labischin divorce suit comes on," he said to the man, as he took the documents from his hand, "At quarter past, Reimann and Reimann _versus_ Fassbender. Get everything in readiness and see that someone accompanies this young lady. You will learn where from the papers." The man vanished. "Well, my dear young lady," her guardian continued, "the time which I can spare you is at an end. You will not be able to resume your school studies, of course. The means are not forthcoming. Even if they were, I rather doubt its being advisable. Governesses do sometimes make brilliant marriages certainly, though oftenest in the pages of English novels; but they are exposed--excuse my plain speaking--to all sorts of temptation, and are sometimes led astray. I should like to get you a place in a large photographic studio, where your duties would be to receive customers; but you would hardly have enough self-assurance for such a post at present. I have therefore found a position for you in a lending library, more as a trial than a permanency. There your light will not be altogether hidden under a bushel. The salary--I need not emphasise the fact--will be moderate: twenty marks a month with board and lodging. You will have every opportunity of letting your fancy browse among the literature of all people and all ages. So, my dear young lady----Good God! why are you crying?" Lilly wiped tears from her eyes and cheeks. "I'm only just out of the hospital," she explained. "I feel rather----I am very sorry." The distinguished lawyer, smiling, shook his head, the baldness of which appeared to be as tended and cared for as the face of a beautiful woman.