--perhaps--she would go no farther--it might be less
degradation to accept an honourable post and do a great duty therein of
helping to make so many girls better women by careful training, than to
live in indigence as a kind of respectable pauper, subsisting on the
assistance of grudging friends.

So the poor, weak, proud woman at last gave way, and the preliminaries
being arranged, Hazel was about to leave home for the training
institution full of hope, when there was a change in the state of
affairs.

All this had taken place unknown to Mr Geringer, who was quite startled
when he heard the plans, for they ran counter to his own.

It had been quite in keeping with his ideas that the Thornes should
taste the bitters of poverty, and know what being impecunious really
meant. The poorer they were the easier would be his task. Matters had
gone on swimmingly. Their position had had its effect upon the
Graves's, and his rival, as he called Archibald Graves, had left the
field; six months had passed, and Hazel had grown to look upon him as a
very dear friend, though not as a lover, and he had come to the
conclusion that the time was now ripe for asking her to be his wife; in
fact, he had had thoughts of speaking at their last meeting, but had
been put off! Now he had come to find Mrs Thorne alone, and after a
certain amount of preliminary, was about to speak, when the lady fired
off her views and took him by surprise.

"Go--to a training institution--become a schoolmistress!" he cried. "My
dear Mrs Thorne, it is impossible."

"Exactly my words," said the lady. "`Hazel, my dear child,' I said,
`such a degradation is impossible.'"

"Quite impossible," said Geringer; and then he drew nearer and talked
for some time in a low voice to Mrs Thorne, who shed tears and sobbed
greatly, and said that she had always looked upon him as their best and
dearest friend.

"I have waited, you see," he continued, "for of course if I had felt
that dear Hazel really cared for this young Graves I should have said
nothing, and I fully know my deficiencies, my age, and such drawbacks;
but I am tolerably wealthy, and I can give her all she has lost, restore
her nearest and dearest to their proper place in society--almost to the
position they formerly held in the world's esteem."

Mrs Thorne thought they were words of gold, and at Geringer's request
she not only readily promised to prepare Hazel, but that all should be
as he wished.

_