In those days she had not lived near enough to it all to know the full meaning and value of it--the beauty and luxury, the stateliness and good taste.

To have known it in this way, to have been almost part of it and then to leave it, to go back to a hugger-mugger existence in a wretched bungalow hounded by debt, pinched and bound hard and fast by poverty, which offered no future prospect of bettering itself into decent good luck! Who could bear it?
Both were thinking the same thing as their eyes met.
"How are we to stand it, after this ?" she cried out sharply.
"We can't stand it," he answered.

"Confound it all, something _must_ happen." "Nothing will," she said; "nothing but that we shall go back worse off than before." * * * * * At this period Lady Walderhurst went to London again to shop, and spent two entire happy days in buying beautiful things of various kinds, which were all to be sent to Mrs.Osborn at The Kennel Farm, Palstrey.

She had never enjoyed herself so much in her life as she did during those two days when she sat for hours at one counter after another looking at exquisite linen and flannel and lace.

The days she had spent with Lady Maria in purchasing her trousseau had not compared with these two.