’I’ll guarantee you the same income you’re getting now—­if that will satisfy you.  I’ve been looking round, and making inquiries, and I’ve got to know a bit about the profits of big dressmakers.  We should start in Camberwell, or somewhere about there, and fish in all the women who want to do the heavy on very little.  There are thousands and thousands of them, and most of them’—­she lowered her voice—­’know as much about cut and material as they do about stockbroking.  Do you twig?  People like Mrs. Middlemist and Mrs. Murch.  They spend, most likely, thirty or forty pounds a year on their things, and we could dress them a good deal more smartly for half the money.  Of course we should make out that a dress we sold them for five guineas was worth ten in the shops, and the real cost would be two.  See?  The thing is to persuade them that they’re getting an article cheap, and at the same time making money out of other people.’

Thus, and at much greater length, did Miss.  French discourse to her attentive sister.  Forgetful of the time, Fanny found at length that it would be impossible to meet Horace Lord as he came out of church; but it did not distress her.

CHAPTER 3

Nancy Lord stood at the front-room window, a hand grasping each side of her waist, her look vaguely directed upon the limetree opposite and the house which it in part concealed.  She was a well-grown girl of three and twenty, with the complexion and the mould of form which indicate, whatever else, habitual nourishment on good and plenteous food.  In her ripe lips and softlyrounded cheeks the current of life ran warm.  She had hair of a fine auburn, and her mode of wearing it, in a plaited diadem, answered the purpose of completing a figure which, without being tall, had some stateliness and promised more.  Her gown, trimmed with a collar of lace, left the neck free; the maiden cincture at her waist did no violence to natural proportion.

This afternoon—­it was Monday—­she could not occupy or amuse herself in any of the familiar ways.  Perhaps the atmosphere of national Jubilee had a disturbing effect upon her,—­in spite of her professed disregard for the gathering tumult of popular enthusiasm.  She had not left home to-day, and the brilliant weather did not tempt her forth.  On the table lay a new volume from the circulating library,—­something about Evolution—­but she had no mind to read it; it would have made her too conscious of the insincerity with which she approached such profound subjects.  For a quarter of an hour and more she had stood at the window, regarding a prospect, now as always, utterly wearisome and depressing to her.