breaking out, more often than was seemly, in brisk skirmish and rapid
passage of arms.

Miss Bruce's education during the lifetime of her parents had been
little calculated to fit her for the position of a dependent, and with
all her misgivings, which, indeed, vexed her sadly, she could not yet
quite divest herself of an idea that her inheritance had not wholly
passed away. Under any circumstances she resolved before long to go at
the head of an establishment of her own, so that she should assume her
proper position, which she often told herself, with _her_ attractions
and _her_ opportunities was a mere question of will.

Then, like a band of iron tightening round her heart, would come the
thought of her promise to Tom Ryfe, the bitter regret for her
own weakness, her own overstrained notions of honour, as she now
considered them, in committing that promise to writing. She felt
as people feel in a dream, when, step which way they will, an
insurmountable obstacle seems to arise, arresting their progress, and
hemming them in by turns on every side.


It was not in the best of humours that, a few days after Lady
Goldthred's party, Maud descended to the luncheon-table fresh from an
hour's consideration of her grievances, and of the false position
in which she was placed. Mrs. Stanmore, too, had just sent back a
misfitting costume to the dressmaker for the third time; so each lady
being, as it were, primed and loaded, the lightest spark would suffice
to produce explosion.

While the servants remained it was necessary to keep the peace,