But Mr. Barry, when he had gone home, told himself that he had progressed in his love-suit quite as far as he had expected on the first opportunity.  He went over the bridge and looked at the genteel house, and resolved as to certain little changes which should be made.  Thus one room should look here, and the nursery should look there.  The walk to the railway would only take five minutes, and there would be five minutes again from the Temple Station in London.  He thought it would do very well for domestic felicity.  And as for a fortune, half the business would not be bad.  And then the whole business would follow, and he in his turn would be enabled to let some young fellow in who should do the greater part of the work and take the smaller part of the pay, as had been the case with himself.

But it had not occurred to him that the young lady had meant what she said when she refused him.  It was the ordinary way with young ladies.  Of course he had expected no enthusiasm of love;—­nor had he wanted it.  He would wait for three weeks and then he would go to Fulham again.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

MR. JUNIPER.

Though there was an air of badinage, almost of tomfoolery, about Dolly when she spoke of her matrimonial prospects to her father,—­as when she said that she would “stick a knife” into Mr. Barry,—­still there was a seriousness in all she said which was more than grave.  She was pathetic and melancholy.  She knew that there was nothing before her but to stay with her father, and then to devote herself to her cousins, from whom she was aware that she recoiled almost with hatred.  And she knew that it would be a good thing to be married,—­if only the right man would come.  The right man would have to bear with her father, and live in the same house with him to the end.  The right man must be a preux chevalier sans peur et sans reproche.  The right man must be strong-minded and masterful, and must have a will of his own; but he must be strong-minded always for good.  And where was she to find such a man as this? she who was only an attorney’s daughter,—­plain, too, and with many eccentricities.  She was not intended to marry, and consequently the only man who came in her way was her father’s partner, for whom, in regard to a share in the business, she might be desirable.

Devotion to the Carroll cousins was manifestly her duty.  The two eldest girls she absolutely did hate, and their father.  To hate the father, because he was vicious beyond cure, might be very well; but she could not hate the girls without being aware that she was guilty of a grievous sin.  Every taste possessed by them was antagonistic to her.  Their amusements, their literature, their clothes, their manners,—­especially in regard to men,—­their gestures and color, were distasteful to her.  “They hide their dirt with a thin veneer of cheap finery,” said Dolly to her father.  He had