Page:The Delectable Duchy.djvu/210

 that Miss Ormiston had "deliberately set herself to inveigle" the boy; but herein Mrs. Haydon was mistaken. As a matter of fact Bob, having discovered someone obliging and intelligent enough to listen, dinned the story of his aspirations into the girl's ear with the persistent egoism of a hobbedehoy. It must be allowed, however, that the counsel she gave him would have annoyed his parents excessively.

"But I do sympathise with you," she said after listening to an immoderately long and peevish harangue; "and I should advise you to go to your father, as a first step, and ask to be paid a very small salary for the work you do--enough to set up in lodgings alone. At present you are pauperising yourself."

Bob did not quite understand--so she explained:

"You are twenty-one, and still receiving food and lodging from your parents as a dole. At your age, if a man receives anything at all from father or mother, he should be earning it as a right."

She spoke impatiently, and longed to add that he was also impoverishing h