es boasted. Not a few professional swindlers came to the office;
confederate rogues, vouching for each other's respectability, got
possession of pianos merely to pawn or sell them, having paid no more
than the first month's charge. It was Mr Lord's experience that year by
year the recklessness of the vulgar became more glaring, and deliberate
fraud more artful. To-day he had successfully prosecuted a man who
seemed to have lived for some time on the hire-purchase system, and it
made him unusually cheerful.

'You don't think of going to see the Queen to-morrow?' said his
daughter, smiling.

'What have I to do with the Queen? Do you wish to go?'

'Not to see Her Majesty. I care as little about her as you do. But I
thought of having a walk in the evening.'

Nancy phrased it thus with intention. She wished to intimate that, at
her age, it could hardly be necessary to ask permission. But her father
looked surprised.

'In the evening? Where?'

'Oh, about the main streets--to see the people and the illuminations.'

Her voice was not quite firm.

'But,' said her father, 'there'll be such a swarm of blackguards as
never was known. How can you go into such a crowd? It's astonishing that
you should think of it.'

'The blackguards will be outnumbered by the decent people, father.'

'You suppose that's possible?' he returned gloomily.

'Oh, I think so,' Nancy laughed. 'At all events, there'll be a great
majority of people who pretend to be decent. I have asked Jessica Morgan
to go with me.'

'What right had you to ask her, without first finding out whether you
could go or not?'

It was spoken rather gravely than severely. Mr. Lord never looked
fixedly at his daughter, and even a glance at her face was unusual; but
at this juncture he met her eyes for an instant. The nervous motion with
which he immediately turned aside had been marked by Nancy on previous
occasions, and she had understood it as a sign of his lack of affection
for her.

'I am twenty-three years old, father,' she replied, without
aggressiveness.

'That would be something of an answer if you were a man,' observed the
father, his eyes cast down.

'Because I am a woman, you despise me?'

Stephen was startled at this unfamiliar mode of address. He moved
uneasily.

'If I despised you, Nancy, I shouldn't care very much what you did. I
suppose you must do as you like, but you won't go with my permission.'

There was a silence, then the girl said: