imself."

"He came to me in Park Lane."

"What! Mr. Roden?"

"Yes; he came. But I didn't see him. Mr. Greenwood saw him."

"What could Mr. Greenwood say to him?"

"Mr. Greenwood could tell him to leave the house,--and he did so.
There was nothing more to tell him. Now, my dear, let there be no
more about it. If you will put on your hat, we will go out and walk
down to the village."

To this Lady Frances gave a ready assent. She was not at all disposed
to quarrel with her father, or to take in bad part what he had said
about her lover. She had not expected that things would go very
easily. She had promised to herself constancy and final success; but
she had not expected that in her case the course of true love could
be made to run smooth. She was quite willing to return to a condition
of good humour with her father, and,--not exactly to drop her lover
for the moment,--but so to conduct herself as though he were not
paramount in her thoughts. The cruelty of her stepmother had so
weighed upon her that she found it to be quite a luxury to be allowed
to walk with her father.

"I don't know that anything can be done," the Marquis said a few days
afterwards to his wife. "It is one of those misfortunes which do
happen now and again!"

"That such a one as your daughter should give herself up to a clerk
in the Post Office!"

"What's the use of repeating that so often? I don't know that the
Post Office is worse than anything else. Of course it can't be
allowed;--and having said so, the best thing will be to go on just as
though nothing had happened."

"And let her do just what she pleases?"

"Who's going to let her do anything? She said she wouldn't write, and
she hasn't written. We must just take her back to Trafford, and let
her forget him as soon as she can."

The Marchioness was by no means satisfied, though she did not know
what measure of special severity to recommend. There was once a
time,--a very good time, as Lady Kingsbury thought now,--in which a
young lady could be locked up in a convent, or perhaps in a prison,
or absolutely forced to marry some suitor whom her parents should
find for her. But those comfortable days were past. In a prison
Lady Frances was detained now; but it was a prison of which the
Marchioness was forced to make herself the gaoler, and in which her
darlings were made to be fellow-prisoners with their wicked sister.
She herself was anxious to get back to Trafford and the comforts o