pt to supply the omission. "The
Contessa thinks it is more piquant," she said. "But nothing is decided
about me, till it is known how I turn out. If I am beautiful the
Contessa will marry me well, and all will be right."

"And is that what you--wish?" said Lucy, in a tone of horror.

"Monsieur, your brother," said Bice, with a laugh, "says I am not
pretty, even. He says it does not matter. How ignorant men are, and
stupid! And then suddenly they are old, old, and sour. I do not know
which is the worst. I do not like men."

"And yet you think of being married, which it is not nice to speak of,"
said Lucy, with disapproval.

"Not--nice? Why is that? Must not girls be married? and if so, why not
think of it?" said Bice, gravely. There was not the ghost of a blush
upon her cheek. "If you might live without being married that would
understand itself; but otherwise----"

"Indeed," cried Lucy, "you can, indeed you can! In England, at least. To
marry for a living, that is terrible."

"Ah!" cried Bice, with interest, drawing her chair nearer, "tell me how
that is to be done."

There was the seriousness of a practical interest in the girl's manner.
The question was very vital to her. There was no other way of existence
possible so far as she knew; but if there was it was well worth taking
into consideration.

Lucy felt the question embarrassing when it was put to her in this very
decisive way. "Oh," she cried with an Englishwoman's usual monosyllabic
appeal for help to heaven and earth: "there are now a great number of
ways. There are so many things that girls can do; there are things open
to them that never used to be--they can even be doctors when they are
clever. There are many ways in which they can maintain themselves."

"By trades?" cried Bice, "by work?" She laughed. "We hear of that
sometimes, and the doctors; everybody laughs; the men make jokes, and
say they will have one when they are ill. If that is all, I do not
think there is anything in it. I should not like to work even if I were
a man, but a woman----! that gets no money, that is _mal vu_. If that is
all! Work," she said, with a little oracular air, "takes up all your
time, and the money that one can earn is so small. A girl avoids saying
much to men who are like this. She knows how little they can have to
offer her; and to work herself, why, it is impossible. What time would
you have for anything?" cried the girl, with an impatient sense of the
fatuit