the first of many such instances. Had he been left to his own
devices, he would already, like numbers of his coevals, have been
supporting (or declining to support) a wife and two or three
children. At present he was 'engaged' to Clem Peckover; that was an
understood thing. His father did not approve it, but this connection
was undeniably better than those he had previously declared or
concealed. Bob, it seemed evident, was fated to make a
_mesalliance_--a pity, seeing his parts and prospects. He
might have aspired to a wife who had scarcely any difficulty with
her _h_'s; whose bringing-up enabled her to look with compassion on
girls who could not play the piano; who counted among her relatives
not one collarless individual.

Clem, as we have seen, had already found, or imagined, cause for
dissatisfaction with her betrothed. She was well enough acquainted
with Bob's repute, and her temper made it improbable, to say the
least, that the course of wooing would in this case run very
smoothly. At present, various little signs were beginning to
convince her that she had a rival, and the hints of her rejected
admirer, Jack Bartley, fixed her suspicions upon an acquaintance
whom she had hitherto regarded merely with contempt. This was
Pennyloaf Candy, formerly, with her parents, a lodger in Mrs.
Peckover's house. The family had been ousted some eighteen months
ago on account of failure to pay their rent and of the frequent
intoxication of Mrs. Candy. Pennyloaf's legal name was Penelope,
which, being pronounced as a trisyllable, transformed itself by
further corruption into a sound at all events conveying some
meaning. Applied in the first instance jocosely, the title grew
inseparable from her, and was the one she herself always used. Her
employment was the making of shirts for export; she earned on an