Page:The New Arcadia (Tucker).djvu/57

Rh another. They will pillory you yet. You should hear what Miss Loveless says already."

"I suppose we must expect to meet with human nature everywhere," remarked the doctor. "We can avoid eccentricities and extremes in each direction."

"Then you side with Maud," said the mother, with an air of scorn. "We are to refuse this invitation, sell our dresses to those charming persons who advertise, 'Don't throw away your spoons and old clothes,' and sit and work a sewing-machine all day long."

The doctor was roused.

"You might do worse than that," he remarked. "Be plain, be honest, that's all I ask." And he sat and smoked his cigar in silence.

Poor man!—he had struggled hard to make his practice and position. Visions had been his of honourable, unconventional usefulness. Lately, however, he had drifted into a false position. His daughter standing there, more like culprit than victim, had already dragooned herself into the thought of becoming some scorned, uncared-for drudge of society. He knew that that might come! He had stretched out his hand to help those that were falling—his own anxieties making him solicitous for those of others. Now his arm was paralyzed by lack of money.

"How I hate it!" he thought. "Those who have, misuse it, those have it not who might put it to good account."

At this moment Elms was announced. He had written stating that he needed a few hundred pounds for the undertaking in which he was engaged.

"You need not go," said the doctor, as the ladies moved to depart. While the two conversed, Mrs. Courtenay said, speaking in a low tone, to her daughters—