her
purchases with care and deliberation.

So at the end of June she settled down with her mother in the pleasant
cottage which was thenceforth to be their home. In addition to the new
plenishing, there were in the house a few favorite pieces of furniture
which had been saved from the wreck at Angleford; and Sydney--perhaps as
a sign that he recognized some redeeming features in her desire to be
independent--had made one room look quite imposing with an old-fashioned
bookcase, and a library table and chair. There was a well-established
garden behind the house, with tall box and bay-trees of more than a
generation's growth, and plenty of those old English border plants
without which a garden is scarcely worthy of its name. On the whole,
Lettice felt that she had not made a bad selection out of the million or
so of human habitations which overflow the province of London; and even
Mrs. Campion would occasionally end her lamentations over the past by
admitting that Maple Cottage was "not a workhouse, my dear, where I
might have expected to finish my life."

The widow had a fixed idea about the troubles which had fallen upon her.
She would talk now and then of the "shameful robberies" which had broken
her husband's heart, and declare that sooner or later the miscreants
would be discovered, and restitution would be made, and they would "all
end their days in peace." As for Sydney, he was still her hero of
heroes, who had come to their rescue when their natural protector was
done to death, and whose elevation to the woolsack might be expected at
any moment.

Lettice's friends, the Grahams, had naturally left her almost
undisturbed during her visit to them, so far as invited guests were
concerned. Nevertheless, she casually met several of Mr. Graham's
literary acquaintances, and he took care to introduce her to one or two
editors and publishers whom he thought likely to be useful to her. James
Graham had plenty of tact; he knew just what to say about Miss Campion,
without saying too much, and he contrived to leave an impression in the
minds of those to whom he spoke that it might be rather difficult to
make this young woman sit down and write, but decidedly worth their
while to do it if they could.

"Now I have thrown in the seeds," Graham said to her before she left
Edwardes Square, "and by the time you want to see them the blades will
be springing up. From what you have told me I should say that you have
quite enough to