t, lost an army, taken a
bribe, oppressed a community, or broken a bank; but the added disclosure
that, in avoiding these stains, her kindred had worked and continued to
work with their hands for bread, might lead such an one to consider that
the novelty was dearly purchased.

Ethelberta was, upon the whole, dissatisfied with her progress thus far.
She had planned many things and fulfilled few. Had her father been by
this time provided for and made independent of the world, as she had
thought he might be, not only would her course with regard to Neigh be
quite clear, but the impending awkwardness of dining with her father
behind her chair could not have occurred. True, that was a small matter
beside her regret for his own sake that he was still in harness; and a
mere change of occupation would be but a tribute to a fastidiousness
which he did not himself share. She had frequently tried to think of a
vocation for him that would have a more dignified sound, and be less
dangerously close to her own path: the post of care-taker at some
provincial library, country stationer, registrar of births and deaths,
and many others had been discussed and dismissed in face of the
unmanageable fact that her father was serenely happy and comfortable as a
butler, looking with dread at any hint of change short of perfect
retirement. Since, then, she could not offer him this retirement, what
right had she to interfere with his mode of life at all? In no other
social groove on earth would he thrive as he throve in his present one,
to which he had been accustomed from boyhood, and where the remuneration
was actually greater than in professions ten times as stately in name.

For the rest, too, Ethelberta had indulged in hopes, the high education
of the younger ones being the chief of these darling wishes. Picotee
wanted looking to badly enough. Sol and Dan required no material help;
they had quickly obtained good places of work under a Pimlico builder;
for though the brothers scarcely showed as yet the light-fingered
deftness of London artizans, the want was in a measure compensated by
their painstaking, and employers are far from despising country hands who
bring with them strength, industry, and a desire to please. But their
sister had other lines laid down for them than those of level progress;
to start them some day as masters instead of men was a long-cherished
wish of Ethelberta's.

Thus she had quite enough machinery in her ha