singer, and his sentiments in regard to her had thus been modified, he had never changed his opinion. She possessed a magnificent organ; and though (which seemed to him very strange) Handel at present was her only inspiration, yet he felt that with proper care that voice could do anything, and that in it might yet lie all the elements of fortune. Casting about around all his horizon for something like salvation, this was the only light that Rollo perceived. It, perhaps, was not the most desirable of lights. To marry a singer in full heyday of her powers, admired by all the world, and making a great deal of money, was not a thing that any younger son would hesitate to do; but an unknown singer, with all her way to make, and her very education still so imperfect, that was a very different matter; but still it was the only chance. In former times, perhaps, a man would have thought it necessary to pretend at least a desire to snatch his bride from the exposure of publicity, from the stage, or even from the concert-room--a determination to work for her rather than to let her work for him; but along with circumstances sentiments change, and the desire of women for work is apt to be supported from an undesirable side by those who once would have thought their honour concerned in making women’s work unnecessary. In civilisation there can be no advance without its attendant drawback. Mr. Ridsdale had fallen in love, a thing no young man can entirely guard against, and he had engaged to marry Lottie Despard, partly because he was in love with her, partly because she was in want of protection and succour. But he did not know in what way he could keep a wife; and short of breaking his word and abandoning her altogether (things which at this moment it seemed utterly impossible to do), what other way was open to him than to consider how his wife could keep him? This was a great deal more easy. He had nothing--no money, no profession--but she had a profession, a something which was worth a great deal of money, which only required cultivation to be as good as a fortune. Rollo’s heart perceptibly lightened as he thought of this. It did not make the social difficulties much easier, or soften the troubles which he must inevitably have with his family; but still, whereas the other matter had been impossible, this brought it within the range of things that could be contemplated. He could not refrain from one sigh (in the undercurrent of his mind--not dwelt upon or even acknowledged, a thing which he would have been ashamed of had he admitted it to himself)--one sigh that the idea of marriage had come in at all. She might have found in him all the succour, all the companionship, all the support she wanted without _that_; and it would have done her no harm in her after career. But that was a secret thought--an inadvertence, a thing which he dared not permit himself to think, as it were, in the daylight, in his own full knowledge.