ngs have happened often. 'And then what shall I do with
her?' thought the sister, irritably,--recoiling from a sudden vision of
Nelly in sorrow, which seemed to threaten her own life with even greater
dislocation than had happened to it already. 'I must have my time to
myself!--freedom for what I want'--she thought to herself, impatiently,
'I can't be always looking after her.'

Yet of course the fact remained that there was no one else to look after
Nelly. They had been left alone in the world for a good while now. Their
father, a Manchester cotton-broker in a small way, had died some six
months before this date, leaving more debts than fortune. The two girls
had found themselves left with very small means, and had lived, of late,
mainly in lodgings--unfurnished rooms--with some of their old furniture
and household things round them. Their father, though unsuccessful in
business, had been ambitious in an old-fashioned way for his children,
and they had been brought up 'as gentlefolks'--that is to say without
any trade or profession.

But their poverty had pinched them disagreeably--especially Bridget, in
whom it had produced a kind of angry resentment. Their education had not
been serious enough, in these days of competition, to enable them to
make anything of teaching after their Father's death. Nelly's
water-colour drawing, for instance, though it was a passion with her,
was quite untrained, and its results unmarketable. Bridget had taken up
one subject after another, and generally in a spirit of antagonism to
her surroundings, who, according to her, were always 'interfering' with
what she wanted to do,--with her serious and important occupations. But
these occupations always ended by coming to nothing; so that, as Bridget
was irritably aware, even Nelly had ceased to be as much in awe of them
as she had once been.

But the elder sister had more solid cause than this for dissatisfaction
with the younger. Nelly had really behaved like a little fool! The one
family asset of which a great deal might have been made--should have
been made--was Nelly's prettiness. She was _very_ pretty--absurdly
pretty--and had been a great deal run after in Manchester already. There
had been actually two proposals from elderly men with money, who were
unaware of the child's engagement, during the past three months; and
though these particular suitors were perhaps unattractive, yet a little
time and patience, and the right man would have