deep sea. The ladies were eager for her entry into Lakelands.
She heard that Victor had appointed Lady Blachington's third son to the
coveted post of clerk in the Indian house of Inchling and Radnor. These
are the deluge days when even aristocracy will cry blessings on the
man who procures a commercial appointment for one of its younger sons
offended and rebutted by the barrier of Examinations for the Civil
Service. 'To have our Adolphus under Mr. Victor Radnor's protection, is
a step!' Lady Blachington said. Nataly was in an atmosphere of hints
and revealings. There were City Dinners, to which one or other of the
residents about Lakelands had been taken before he sat at Victor's
London table. He was already winning his way, apparently without effort,
to be the popular man of that neighbourhood. A subterranean tide or
a slipping of earth itself seemed bearing her on. She had his promise
indeed, that he would not ask of her to enter Lakelands until the day of
his freedom had risen; but though she could trust to his word, the
heart of the word went out of it when she heard herself thanked by Lady
Blachington (who could so well excuse her at such a time of occupation
for not returning her call, that she called in a friendly way a second
time, warmly to thank her) for throwing open the Concert room at
Lakelands in August, to an Entertainment in assistance of the funds for
the purpose of erecting an East of London Clubhouse, where the children
of the poor by day could play, and their parents pass a disengaged
evening. Doubtless a worthy Charity. Nataly was alive to the duties of
wealth. Had it been simply a demand for a donation, she would not have
shown that momentary pucker of the brows, which Lady Blachington read as
a contrast with the generous vivacity of the husband.

Nataly read a leaf of her fate in this announcement. Nay, she beheld
herself as the outer world wexedly beholds a creature swung along to the
doing of things against the better mind. An outer world is thoughtless
of situations which prepare us to meet the objectionable with a will
benumbed;--if we do not, as does that outer world, belong to the party
of the readily heroical. She scourged her weakness: and the intimation
of the truth stood over her, more than ever manifest, that the
deficiency affecting her character lay in her want of language. A tongue
to speak and contend, would have helped her to carve a clearer way. But
then again, the tongue to speak