ve in. After
all, Frances was not to be judged as an ordinary girl--she was a
hard-hearted, tough-fibred, prosaic little minx, for which reason Deb
pitied the prospective husband more than she did her; and if she did
not do this bad thing now, the chances were that she would do a worse
thing later on. She was made to disport herself in the sunshine of the
world; she was of the type of woman that must have men about her; she
would get her "rights", as she called them, somehow, by fair means or
foul. Deb was sufficiently a woman of the world herself to recognise
this, and the uselessness of thinking she could alter it. Well, money
is a consolatory thing--she knew its value now; and there was that
additional comfort, which, of course, she did not own to--the thought
of where Mr Ewing would be when Mrs Ewing was in her prime.

"You dear old thing!" the bride-elect patronised her elder sister.
"James is so pleased to have your consent, and he says he won't ask you
to give me my share of what father left us--it would be but a drop in
the bucket anyway; you are to keep it all yourself."

Deb had had whole control of the fragments of his once large fortune
left by Mr Pennycuick to his four daughters, on behalf of any of them
unmarried or under age; but Mary and Rose--although Peter had also
protested against it--had been paid the value of their shares (whence
the Jew element in the present difficulties); and the unforeseen
marriage of Frances at eighteen threatened total bankruptcy to the
remaining sister. Yet Deb said, with fierce determination:

"Of course you will have what is your due, like the others."

"I'm sure he won't take it, Deb. He said he wouldn't."

"I don't care what he says. It concerns you and me--not him."

"I really should not miss it, dear. I am to have a thousand a year to
draw against, for just nothing but my clothes and pocket-money."

"I am glad to hear it," said Deb. "You can give your own income to the
poor."

"You really won't keep it?"

"Is it likely I would keep what doesn't belong to me?"

"Well, then," said Frances, her easy conscience satisfied, "we can put
it into my trousseau. I MUST have a decent trousseau mustn't I?"

"Of course!"

Frances saw to it that she had a decent one. Now was the time, the only
time, that she should want her money, and she did not spare it. She
ordered right and left, and Deb seemed equally reckless. The bills were
left for her to settle--of course made