There was an hotel, with carriages and horses almost unnumbered;--and then there came to their rooms a crowd of dark, swarthy, greasy men, who were entertained sumptuously; but there were few women.

At this time Marie was hardly nineteen, and young enough in manner and appearance to be taken for seventeen.

Suddenly again she was told that she was to be taken to London, and the migration had been effected with magnificence.

She was first taken to Brighton, where the half of an hotel had been hired, and had then been brought to Grosvenor Square, and at once thrown into the matrimonial market.

No part of her life had been more disagreeable to her, more frightful, than the first months in which she had been trafficked for by the Nidderdales and Grassloughs.