f course I owe obedience,--to a certain extent. There
does come a time, I suppose, in which a daughter may use her own
judgment as to her own happiness."

"And disgrace all her family?"

"I do not think that I shall disgrace mine. What I want you to
understand, papa, is this,--that you will not ensure my obedience by
keeping me here. I think I should be more likely to be submissive at
home. There is an idea in enforced control which is hardly compatible
with obedience. I don't suppose you will lock me up."

"You have no right to talk to me in that way."

"I want to explain that our being here can do no good. When you are
gone mamma and I will only be very unhappy together. She won't talk
to me, and will look at me as though I were a poor lost creature. I
don't think that I am a lost creature at all, but I shall be just as
much lost here as though I were at home in England."

"When you come to talking you are as bad as your brother," said the
Marquis as he left her. Only that the expression was considered to be
unfit for female ears, he would have accused her of "talking the hind
legs off a dog."

When he was gone the life at Koenigsgraaf became very sombre indeed.
Mr. George Roden's name was never mentioned by either of the ladies.
There was the Post Office, no doubt, and the Post Office was at
first left open to her; but there soon came a time in which she
was deprived of this consolation. With such a guardian as the
Marchioness, it was not likely that free correspondence should be
left open to her.

CHAPTER V.

MRS. RODEN.

George Roden, the Post Office clerk, lived with his mother at
Holloway, about three miles from his office. There they occupied a
small house which had been taken when their means were smaller even
than at present;--for this had been done before the young man had
made his way into the official elysium of St. Martin's-le-Grand.
This had been effected about five years since, during which time he
had risen to an income of L170. As his mother had means of her own
amounting to about double as much, and as her personal expenses were
small, they were enabled to live in comfort. She was a lady of whom
none around knew anything, but there had gone abroad a rumour among
her neighbours that there was something of a mystery attached to her,
and there existed a prevailing feeling that she was at any rate a
well-born lady. Few people at Holloway knew either her or her son.
But there were some