friends; "let them run through it all,
if they please. It would do them a deal of good if they were obliged to
earn their own living, like better people than themselves." Left free to
take his own way, Robert sold the estate merely to get rid of it. With
no expensive tastes, except the taste for buying pictures, he became a
richer man than ever.

When their brother next communicated with them, Lady Northlake and Mrs.
Gallilee heard of him as a voluntary exile in Italy. He was building a
studio and a gallery; he was contemplating a series of pictures; and he
was a happy man for the first time in his life.

Another interval passed--and the sisters heard of Robert again.

Having already outraged the sense of propriety among his English
neighbours, he now degraded himself in the estimation of his family,
by marrying a "model." The letter announcing this event declared, with
perfect truth, that he had chosen a virtuous woman for his wife. She sat
to artists, as any lady might sit to any artist, "for the head only."
Her parents gained a bare subsistence by farming their own little morsel
of land; they were honest people--and what did brother Robert care for
rank? His own grandfather had been a farmer.

Lady Northlake and Mrs. Gallilee felt it due to themselves to hold a
consultation, on the subject of their sister-in-law. Was it desirable,
in their own social interests, to cast Robert off from that moment?

Susan (previously advised by her kind-hearted husband) leaned to the
side of mercy. Robert's letter informed them that he proposed to live,
and die, in Italy. If he held to this resolution, his marriage would
surely be an endurable misfortune to his relatives in London. "Suppose
we write to him," Susan concluded, "and say we are surprised, but
we have no doubt he knows best. We offer our congratulations to Mrs.
Robert, and our sincere wishes for his happiness."

To Lady Northlake's astonishment, Mrs. Gallilee adopted this indulgent
point of view, without a word of protest. She had her reasons--but they
were not producible to a relative whose husband had forty thousand a
year. Robert had paid her debts.

An income of three thousand pounds, even in these days, represents a
handsome competence--provided you don't "owe a duty to society." In
Mrs. Gallilee's position, an income of three thousand pounds represented
genteel poverty. She was getting into debt again; and she was meditating
future designs on her brother's pu