present; fresh circumstances could be dealt with as they arose.

Alice obtained a situation as nursery-governess at sixteen pounds a
year. Virginia was fortunate enough to be accepted as companion by a
gentlewoman at Weston-super-Mare; her payment, twelve pounds. Gertrude,
fourteen years old, also went to Weston, where she was offered
employment in a fancy-goods shop--her payment nothing at all, but
lodging, board, and dress assured to her.

Ten years went by, and saw many changes.

Gertrude and Martha were dead; the former of consumption, the other
drowned by the overturning of a pleasure-boat. Mr. Hungerford also was
dead, and a new guardian administered the fund which was still a common
property of the four surviving daughters. Alice plied her domestic
teaching; Virginia remained a 'companion.' Isabel, now aged twenty,
taught in a Board School at Bridgewater, and Monica, just fifteen, was
on the point of being apprenticed to a draper at Weston, where Virginia
abode. To serve behind a counter would not have been Monica's choice if
any more liberal employment had seemed within her reach. She had no
aptitude whatever for giving instruction; indeed, had no aptitude for
anything but being a pretty, cheerful, engaging girl, much dependent on
the love and gentleness of those about her. In speech and bearing
Monica greatly resembled her mother; that is to say, she had native
elegance. Certainly it might be deemed a pity that such a girl could
not be introduced to one of the higher walks of life; but the time had
come when she must 'do something', and the people to whose guidance she
looked had but narrow experience of life. Alice and Virginia sighed
over the contrast with bygone hopes, but their own careers made it seem
probable that Monica would be better off 'in business' than in a more
strictly genteel position. And there was every likelihood that, at such
a place as Weston, with her sister for occasional chaperon, she would
ere long find herself relieved of the necessity of working for a
livelihood.

To the others, no wooer had yet presented himself. Alice, if she had
ever dreamt of marriage, must by now have resigned prettiness, her
health damaged by attendance upon an exacting herself to spinsterhood.
Virginia could scarce hope that her faded invalid and in profitless
study when she ought to have been sleeping, would attract any man in
search of a wife. Poor Isabel was so extremely plain. Monica, if her
promise we