be her judgment, looking at the
matter all round?

She did not at any rate obey him at all points, for she left his
letter in her pocket for three or four days, while she considered the
matter backwards and forwards.

CHAPTER LX.

AUNT ROSINA.

During this period of heroism it had been necessary to Houston to
have some confidential friend to whom from time to time he could
speak of his purpose. He could not go on eating slices of boiled
mutton at eating-houses, and drinking dribblets of bad wine out
of little decanters no bigger than the bottles in a cruet stand,
without having some one to encourage him in his efforts. It was a
hard apprenticeship, and, coming as it did rather late in life for
such a beginning, and after much luxurious indulgence, required some
sympathy and consolation. There were Tom Shuttlecock and Lord John
Battledore at the club. Lord John was the man as to whose expulsion
because of his contumacious language so much had been said, but who
lived through that and various other dangers. These had been his
special friends, and to them he had confided everything in regard
to the Tringle marriage. Shuttlecock had ridiculed the very idea of
love, and had told him that everything else was to be thrown to the
dogs in pursuit of a good income. Battledore had reminded him that
there was "a deuced deal of cut-and-come-again in a hundred and
twenty thousand pounds." They had been friends, not always altogether
after his own heart, but friends who had served his purpose when he
was making his raid upon Lombard Street. But they were not men to
whom he could descant on the wholesomeness of cabbages as an article
of daily food, or who would sympathise with the struggling joys of
an embryo father. To their thinking, women were occasionally very
convenient as being the depositaries of some of the accruing wealth
of the world. Frank had been quite worthy of their friendship as
having "spotted" and nearly "run down" for himself a well-laden
city heiress. But now Tom Shuttlecock and Lord John Battledore
were distasteful to him,--as would he be to them. But he found the
confidential friend in his maiden aunt.

Miss Houston was an old lady,--older than her time, as are some
people,--who lived alone in a small house in Green Street. She was
particular in calling it Green Street, Hyde Park. She was very
anxious to have it known that she never occupied it during the months
of August, September, and October,--