omfort and woe getting off. They flocked to
the well-to-do weddings with an intoxication of relief. For let
class-jealousy be what it may, a woman hates to see another woman
left stalely on the shelf, without a chance. They all _wanted_ the
middle-class girls to find husbands. Every one wanted it, including
the girls themselves. Hence the dismalness.

Now James Houghton had only one child: his daughter Alvina. Surely
Alvina Houghton--

But let us retreat to the early eighties, when Alvina was a baby: or
even further back, to the palmy days of James Houghton. In his palmy
days, James Houghton was _creme de la creme_ of Woodhouse society.
The house of Houghton had always been well-to-do: tradespeople, we
must admit; but after a few generations of affluence, tradespeople
acquire a distinct _cachet_. Now James Houghton, at the age of
twenty-eight, inherited a splendid business in Manchester goods, in
Woodhouse. He was a tall, thin, elegant young man with side-whiskers,
genuinely refined, somewhat in the Bulwer style. He had a taste for
elegant conversation and elegant literature and elegant Christianity:
a tall, thin, brittle young man, rather fluttering in his manner, full
of facile ideas, and with a beautiful speaking voice: most beautiful.
Withal, of course, a tradesman. He courted a small, dark woman, older
than himself, daughter of a Derbyshire squire. He expected to get at
least ten thousand pounds with her. In which he was disappointed, for
he got only eight hundred. Being of a romantic-commercial nature, he
never forgave her, but always treated her with the most elegant
courtesy. To seehim peel and prepare an apple for her was an exquisite
sight. But that peeled and quartered apple was her portion. This
elegant Adam of commerce gave Eve her own back, nicely cored, and had
no more to do with her. Meanwhile Alvina was born.

Before all this, however, before his marriage, James Houghton had
built Manchester House. It was a vast square building--vast, that
is, for Woodhouse--standing on the main street and high-road of the
small but growing town. The lower front consisted of two fine shops,
one for Manchester goods, one for silk and woollens. This was James
Houghton's commercial poem.

For James Houghton was a dreamer, and something of a poet: commercial,
be it understood. He liked the novels of George Macdonald, and the
fantasies of that author, extremely. He wove one continual fantasy for
himself, a fantasy of co