Mr. Gascoigne's worth of character, a little obscured by
worldly opportunities--as the poetic beauty of women is obscured by the
demands of fashionable dressing--showed itself to great advantage under
this sudden reduction of fortune. Prompt and methodical, he had set
himself not only to put down his carriage, but to reconsider his worn
suits of clothes, to leave off meat for breakfast, to do without
periodicals, to get Edwy from school and arrange hours of study for all
the boys under himself, and to order the whole establishment on the
sparest footing possible. For all healthy people economy has its
pleasures; and the rector's spirit had spread through the household.
Mrs. Gascoigne and Anna, who always made papa their model, really did
not miss anything they cared about for themselves, and in all sincerity
felt that the saddest part of the family losses was the change for Mrs.
Davilow and her children.

Anna for the first time could merge her resentment on behalf of Rex in
her sympathy with Gwendolen; and Mrs. Gascoigne was disposed to hope
that trouble would have a salutary effect on her niece, without
thinking it her duty to add any bitters by way of increasing the
salutariness. They had both been busy devising how to get blinds and
curtains for the cottage out of the household stores; but with delicate
feeling they left these matters in the back-ground, and talked at first
of Gwendolen's journey, and the comfort it was to her mamma to have her
at home again.

In fact there was nothing for Gwendolen to take as a justification for
extending her discontent with events to the persons immediately around
her, and she felt shaken into a more alert attention, as if by a call
to drill that everybody else was obeying, when her uncle began in a
voice of firm kindness to talk to her of the efforts he had been making
to get her a situation which would offer her as many advantages as
possible. Mr. Gascoigne had not forgotten Grandcourt, but the
possibility of further advances from that quarter was something too
vague for a man of his good sense to be determined by it: uncertainties
of that kind must not now slacken his action in doing the best he could
for his niece under actual conditions.

"I felt that there was no time to be lost, Gwendolen; for a position in
a good family where you will have some consideration is not to be had
at a moment's notice. And however long we waited we could hardly find
one where you would be bet