proud, and had told herself that she could not degrade herself in the world without a heavy pang.  But she had at last taught herself to believe that she had more to gain by becoming the wife of such a man as Crosbie than by remaining as an unmarried daughter of her father’s house.  There was much in her sister Amelia’s position which she did not envy, but there was less to envy in that of her sister Rosina.  The Gazebee house in St. John’s Wood Road was not so magnificent as Courcy Castle; but then it was less dull, less embittered by torment, and was moreover her sister’s own.

“Very many do marry commoners,” she had said to Margaretta.

“Oh, yes, of course.  It makes a difference, you know, when a man has a fortune.”

Of course it did make a difference.  Crosbie had no fortune, was not even so rich as Mr Gazebee, could keep no carriage, and would have no country house.  But then he was a man of fashion, was more thought of in the world than Mr Gazebee, might probably rise in his own profession,—­and was at any rate thoroughly presentable.  She would have preferred a gentleman with L5,000 a year; but then as no gentleman with L5,000 a year came that way, would she not be happier with Mr Crosbie than she would be with no husband at all?  She was not very much in love with Mr Crosbie, but she thought that she could live with him comfortably, and that on the whole it would be a good thing to be married.

And she made certain resolves as to the manner in which she would do her duty by her husband.  Her sister Amelia was paramount in her own house, ruling indeed with a moderate, endurable dominion, and ruling much to her husband’s advantage.  Alexandrina feared that she would not be allowed to rule, but she could at any rate try; She would do all in her power to make him comfortable, and would be specially careful not to irritate him by any insistence on her own higher rank.  She would be very meek in this respect; and if children should come she would be as painstaking about them as though her own father had been merely a clergyman or a lawyer.  She thought also much about poor Lilian Dale, asking herself sundry questions, with an idea of being high-principled as to her duty in that respect.  Was she wrong in taking Mr Crosbie away from Lilian Dale?  In answer to these questions she was able to assure herself comfortably that she was not wrong.  Mr Crosbie would not, under any circumstances, marry Lilian Dale.  He had told her so more than once, and that in a solemn way.  She could therefore be doing no harm to Lilian Dale.  If she entertained any inner feeling that Crosbie’s fault in jilting Lilian Dale was less than it would have been had she herself not been an earl’s daughter,—­that her own rank did in some degree extenuate her lover’s falseness,—­she did not express it in words even to herself.