service, and Fanny, sweet blossom! by mingling her fragrance with that of a florist’s shop in Brixton; but on their father’s death both forsook their employment, and came to live with Mrs. Peachey.  Between them, these two were the owners of house-property, which produced L140 a year.  They disbursed, together, a weekly sum of twenty-four shillings for board and lodging, and spent or saved the rest as their impulses dictated.

CHAPTER 2

Ada brooded over her wrongs; Beatrice glanced over The Referee.  Fanny, after twirling awhile in maiden meditation, turned to the piano and jingled a melody from ‘The Mikado.’  She broke off suddenly, and, without looking round, addressed her companions.

’You can give the third seat at the Jubilee to somebody else.  I’m provided for.’

‘Who are you going with?’ asked Ada.

‘My masher,’ the girl replied with a giggle.

‘Where?’

‘Shop-windows in the Strand, I think.’

She resumed her jingling; it was now ‘Queen of my Heart.’  Beatrice, dropping her paper, looked fixedly at the girl’s profile, with an eyelid droop which signified calculation.

‘How much is he really getting?’ she inquired all at once.

’Seventy-five pounds a year. “Oh where, oh where, is my leetle dog gone?"’

‘Does he say,’ asked Mrs. Peachey, ’that his governor will stump up?’

They spoke a peculiar tongue, the product of sham education and mock refinement grafted upon a stock of robust vulgarity.  One and all would have been moved to indignant surprise if accused of ignorance or defective breeding.  Ada had frequented an ’establishment for young ladies’ up to the close of her seventeenth year; the other two had pursued culture at a still more pretentious institute until they were eighteen.  All could ‘play the piano;’ all declared—­and believed—­that they ‘knew French.’  Beatrice had ‘done’ Political Economy; Fanny had ‘been through’ Inorganic Chemistry and Botany.  The truth was, of course, that their minds, characters, propensities had remained absolutely proof against such educational influence as had been brought to bear upon them.  That they used a finer accent than their servants, signified only that they had grown up amid falsities, and were enabled, by the help of money, to dwell above-stairs, instead of with their spiritual kindred below.

Anticipating Fanny’s reply, Beatrice observed, with her air of sagacity: 

’If you think you’re going to get anything out of an old screw like Lord, you’ll jolly soon find your mistake.’

‘Don’t you go and make a fool of yourself, Fanny,’ said Mrs. Peachey.  ‘Why, he can’t be more than twenty-one, is he?’

‘He’s turned twenty-two.’

The others laughed scornfully.

‘Can’t I have who I like for a masher?’ cried Fanny, reddening a little.  ’Who said I was going to marry him?  I’m in no particular hurry to get married.  You think everybody’s like yourselves.’