Time to Lady Forestfield passed on a leaden wing. From her earliest youth, from her nursery and governess days, she had always been accustomed to have amusement and excitement provided for her, and she was therefore totally unused and unable almost to think for herself, even when the topics to be thought of were of the vainest and lightest character. In her happiest days she had been always at the mercy of others, even for the suggestion of the frivolities in which she proposed to pass her time; and when these frivolities were at an end and she had to rely on her own unaided exertions to get through her day--without the power of squandering money, and with the feeling that her appearance in public when not absolutely compulsory would be in bad taste--she was wretched enough indeed. Neither she nor her companions had ever had any occupation. Their reading was confined to the trashiest romances which the circulating-library clerk chose to send to them; as to the meaning of needlework in its good old-fashioned sense they had not the slightest idea. Some of them would take up a bit of braiding or embroidery now and then, when it was thought that slippers or braces would be acceptable offerings to their 'pals;' a few of them now and then made a helpless mess with watercolours, under the idea that they were painting; and one, perhaps the most impudent and fastest of the set, took to illuminating texts, a work which she performed with great skill and exquisite good taste, and which added greatly to the attractions of the fashionable church of St. Boanerges. But May Forestfield neither braided, nor drew, nor illuminated; and as the novels of the day principally turned upon various phases of the sin for the commission of which she was suffering, she had little pleasure in perusing them. Once or twice, indeed, she tried to take up some reading of a better and more serious kind, but she found it impossible to fix her attention; her thoughts wandered away from the book, which fell idly on her lap, and she was reduced to her old condition of staring blankly before her and wondering what would be the result of her 'case.'