“She does not care,” said Allen; “but mother, how can you let her?”

“I can’t help it, Allen.  We turned out all the old feathers and flowers, to see if I could find anything more respectable; but things don’t last in Bloomsbury, and they only looked fit to point a moral, and not at all to adorn a tail or a head.”

“I should think not.  But can’t the poor child have something fresh, and like other people ?”

No; her uncle had given her bridesmaid’s dress, but there had been expenses enough connected with the journey to Fordham to drain the dress purse, and the sealskin cap that had been then available could not be worn in the sun of June.  There had been sundry incidental calls for money.  Mother Carey had been disappointed in the sale of a somewhat ambitious set of groups from Fouque’s “Seasons,” which were declared abstruse and uninteresting to the public.  She had accepted an order for some very humble work, not much better than chimney ornaments, for which she rose early, and toiled while Babie was out driving with her friends.  When she had the money for this she would be more at ease, and if it came to a little more than she durst reckon upon, she could venture on some extras.

“Babie might earn it for herself; she is full of inventions.”

“There is nothing more strongly impressed on me than that those children are not to begin being made literary hacks before they are come to maturity.  One Christmas tale a year is the utmost I ought to allow.”

“I wish I could be a literary hack, or anything else,” sighed poor Allen.

It was the first time he really let himself understand what a burden he was, and as Fordham was one of those people who involuntarily almost draw out confidence, he talked it over with him.  Allen himself was convinced, by having really tried, that he was not as availably clever as others of his family.  Whether nature or dawdling was to blame, he had neither originality nor fire.  He could not get his plots or his characters to work, even when his mother or Babie jogged them on by remarks:  his essays were heavy and unreadable, his jokes hung fire, and he had so exhausted every one’s patience, that the translations and small reviewing work which he could have done were now unattainable.  He was now ready to do anything, and he actually meant it, but there seemed nothing for him to do.  Mrs. Evelyn succeeded in getting him two pupils, little pickles whom their sister’s governess could not manage, and whom he was to teach for two hours every morning in preparation for their going to school.

He attended faithfully, but he was not the man to deal with pickles.  The mutual aversion with which the connection began, increased upon further acquaintance.  The boys found out his weak points, and played tricks, learnt nothing, and made his life a burden to him; and though the lady mother liked him extremely, and could not think why her sons were so naughty with him, it would not be easy to say which of the parties concerned looked with the strongest sense of relief to the close of the engagement.