ink himself should he ever
reach the pecuniary paradise of L900 a-year! How he would see all his
friends, and in return be seen of them! But when the income has been
achieved its capabilities are found to be by no means endless. And
Dosett in the earlier spheres of his married life had unfortunately
anticipated something of such comforts. For a year or two he had
spent a little money imprudently. Something which he had expected
had not come to him; and, as a result, he had been forced to
borrow, and to insure his life for the amount borrowed. Then,
too, when that misfortune as to the money came,--came from the
non-realization of certain claims which his wife had been supposed
to possess,--provision had also to be made for her. In this way an
assurance office eat up a large fraction of his income, and left him
with means which in truth were very straitened. Dosett at once gave
up all glories of social life, settled himself in Kingsbury Crescent,
and resolved to satisfy himself with his walk across the park and
his frugal dinner afterwards. He never complained to any one, nor
did his wife. He was a man small enough to be contented with a thin
existence, but far too great to ask any one to help him to widen it.
Sir Thomas Tringle never heard of that L175 paid annually to the
assurance office, nor had Lady Tringle, Dosett's sister, even heard
of it. When it was suggested to him that he should take one of the
Dormer girls, he consented to take her and said nothing of the
assurance office.

Mrs. Dosett had had her great blow in life, and had suffered more
perhaps than her husband. This money had been expected. There had
been no doubt of the money,--at any rate on her part. It did not
depend on an old gentleman with or without good intentions, but
simply on his death. There was to be ever so much of it, four or five
hundred a-year, which would last for ever. When the old gentleman
died, which took place some ten years after Dosett's marriage, it
was found that the money, tied tight as it had been by half-a-dozen
lawyers, had in some fashion vanished. Whither it had gone is little
to our purpose, but it had gone. Then there came a great crash upon
the Dosetts, which she for a while had been hardly able to endure.

But when she had collected herself together after the crash, and
had made up her mind, as had Dosett also, to the nature of the life
which they must in future lead, she became more stringent in it even
than he. He