e
grew to the age of independence, her contempt of girls who "went
wrong," these domestic quarrels and miseries which led to her breaking
away and becoming an artists' model. How remote it all was! Had she not
lived through it in a prior existence, with rebirth to the life of
luxury and command which alone seemed natural to her? All but sixty
years had passed since she said good-bye for ever to Camden Town, and
for thirty years at least, the greater part of her married life, she
had scarce turned a thought in that direction. Long ago her father and
mother were dead; she knew of it only from the solicitor, Mr.
Kerchever, who, after the death of Sir Quentin, gave her a full account
of the baronet's pecuniary relations with the Tomalin household. No
blackmailing had ever been practised; the plumber and his wife were
content with what they received, (Arabella felt a satisfaction in
remembering that of her own accord she had asked her husband to do
something for them, when she might very well have disregarded them
altogether,) and the two brothers, who were supposed to have left
England, had never been heard of again. The failure to discover anyone
named Tomalin whom she could regard as of her own blood was now a
disappointment to Lady Ogram; sometimes she even fretted about it. Mr.
Kerchever had it in charge to renew the inquiry, to use every possible
means, and spare no outlay. The old woman yearned for kinsfolk, as the
younger sometimes do for offspring of their own.

The engagement of Constance Bride as resident secretary resulted no
doubt from this craving in the old lady's mind for human affection.
Perhaps she felt that she had behaved with less than justice to the
girl's father; moreover, Constance as a little child had greatly won
her liking, and in the young woman she perceived a capability, an
independence, which strongly appealed to her. Thus far they had got on
very well together, and Lady Ogram began to think that she had found in
Constance what she had long been looking for--one of her own sex equal
to the burden of a great responsibility and actuated by motives pure
enough to make her worthy of a high privilege.

Had her girlhood fallen into brutal hands, Arabella's native savagery
would doubtless have developed strange excesses in the life of a social
outlaw. The companionship of Quentin Ogram, a mild idealist,
good-naturedly critical of the commonplace, though it often wearied her
and irritated her primiti