rounded,'--`Gatty, you must not laugh,'--`Gatty, you must not
sneeze,'--`Gatty, walk slower,'--come, that's enough. Then there's
Molly on the top of it. And there's Betty on the top of Molly,--who
can't conceive why anybody should ruffle her mind about anything. And
there's Mother above all, for ever telling me she looks to have me cut a
dash, and make a good match; and if I had played my cards rightly I
ought to have caught a husband ere I was seventeen,--'tis disgraceful
that I should thus throw away my advantages. And, Phoebe, _I_ want
nothing but to creep into some little, far-away corner, and _be me_, and
throw away my patches and love-locks, and powder and pomatum, and never
see that other Gatty any more. That's how it was up to last month."

Gatty paused a moment, and drew a long sigh.

"And then, there came another on the scene, and I suppose the play grew
more entertaining to Mother, and Betty, and Molly, in the boxes. People
don't think, you know, when they look down at the prima donna, painted,
and smiling, and decked with flowers,--they don't think if she has a
husband who ill-uses her, or a child dying at home. She has come there
to make them sport. Well, there came an old lord,--a man of sixty or
seventy,--who has led a wild rakish life all these years, and now he
thinks 'tis time to settle down, and he wants me to help him to make
people think he's become respectable. And they say I shall marry him.
Phoebe, they say I must,--there is to be no help for it. And I can't
bear him to look at me. If he touches my glove, I want to fling it into
the fire when it comes off. And this one month, here, at White-Ladies,
is my last quiet time. When I go home--if Betty be recovered of her
distemper--I am to be married to this old man in a week's time. I am
tied hand and foot, like a captive or a slave; and I have not even the
poor relief of tears. They make my eyes red, and I must not make, my
eyes red, if it would save my life. But nothing will save me. The
lambs that used to be led to the altar are not more helpless than I.
The rope is round my neck; and I must trot on beside the executioner,
and find what comfort I can in the garland of roses on my head."

There was a silence of a few seconds after Gatty finished her miserable
tale. And then Phoebe's voice asked softly,--

"Dear Mrs Gatty, have you asked God to save you?"

"What's the use?" answered Gatty, in a hopeless tone.

"Because He wou