se easily
evaded; breakfast when you will, with dinner almost as little
binding, with much company and acknowledged aptitude for idle luxury.
That is life at No. 10. At No. 11 everything is cased in iron. There
shall be equal plenty, but at No. 11 even plenty is a bondage. Duty
rules everything, and it has come to be acknowledged that duty is to
be hard. So many hours of needlework, so many hours of books, so many
hours of prayer! That all the household shall shiver before daylight,
is a law, the breach of which by any member either augurs sickness or
requires condign punishment. To be comfortable is a sin; to laugh is
almost equal to bad language. Such and so various is life at No. 10
and at No. 11.

From one extremity, as far removed, to another poor Lucy had been
conveyed; though all the laws were not exactly carried out in
Kingsbury Crescent as they have been described at No. 11. The
enforced prayers were not there, nor the early hours. It was simply
necessary that Lucy should be down to breakfast at nine, and had
she not appeared nothing violent would have been said. But it was
required of her that she should endure a life which was altogether
without adornment. Uncle Dosett himself, as a clerk in the Admiralty,
had a certain position in the world which was sufficiently maintained
by decent apparel, a well-kept, slight, grey whisker, and an umbrella
which seemed never to have been violated by use. Dosett was popular
at his office, and was regarded by his brother clerks as a friend.
But no one was acquainted with his house and home. They did not
dine with him, nor he with them. There are such men in all public
offices,--not the less respected because of the quiescence of their
lives. It was known of him that he had burdens, though it was not
known what his burdens were. His friends, therefore, were intimate
with him as far as the entrance into Somerset House,--where his
duties lay,--and not beyond it. Lucy was destined to know the other
side of his affairs, the domestic side, which was as quiet as the
official side. The link between them, which consisted of a journey by
the Underground Railway to the Temple Station, and a walk home along
the Embankment and across the parks and Kensington Gardens, was the
pleasantest part of Dosett's life.

Mr. Dosett's salary has been said to be L900 per annum. What a fund
of comfort there is in the word! When the youth of nineteen enters
an office how far beyond want would he th