And upon the rare occasions when there was company in the house, Miss Wickham’s ingenuity in providing occupation for dear Miss Marsh, while she was herself occupied with her friends, was inexhaustible.  In an evil hour Nora had confessed to a modest talent for washing lace.  Miss Wickham, it developed, had a really fine collection of beautiful pieces which naturally required the most delicate handling.  Their need for being washed was oddly coincident with the moment when the expected guest arrived at the door.

Or, it appeared that the slugs had attacked the rose trees in unusual numbers.  The gardener was in despair as he was already behind with setting out the annuals.  “Would Miss Marsh mind while Miss Wickham had her little after-luncheon nap——!” Miss Marsh did mind.  She loved flowers; to arrange them was a delight—­at least it had been once—­but she hated slugs.  But she was too young and too inexperienced to know how to combat the subtle encroachments upon her own time made by this selfish old woman.  And so, gradually, she had found that she was not only companion, but a sort of superior lady’s maid and assistant gardener as well.  And all for thirty pounds a year and her keep.

And alas!  Prince Charming had never appeared, unless—­Nora laughed aloud at the thought—­he had disguised himself with a cleverness defying detection.  With Reginald Hornby, a callow youth, the son of Miss Wickham’s dearest friend, who occasionally made the briefest of duty visits; Mr. Wynne, the family solicitor, an elderly bachelor; and the doctor’s assistant, a young person by the name of Gard, Nora’s list of eligible men was complete.  There had been a time when Nora had flirted with the idea of escaping from bondage by becoming the wife of young Gard.

He was a rather common young man, but he had been sincerely in love with her.  He was not sufficiently subtle to recognize that it was the idea of escaping from Miss Wickham and the deadly monotony of her days that tempted her.  He had laid his case before Miss Wickham.  There had been some terrible scenes.  Nora had felt the lash of her employer’s bitter tongue.  Partly because she was still smarting from the attack, and partly because she was indignant with her suitor for having gone to Miss Wickham at all and particularly without consulting her, she, too, had turned on the unfortunate young man.  There had been mutual recriminations and reproaches, and young Gard, after his brief and bitter experience with the gentry, had left the vicinity of Tunbridge Wells and later on married a girl of his own class.