pace with the times. And Nancy hated it. She would have preferred to
live even in a poor and grimy street which neighboured the main
track of business and pleasure.

Here she had spent as much of her life as she remembered, from the
end of her third year. Mr. Lord never willingly talked of days gone
by, but by questioning him she had learnt that her birthplace was a
vaguely indicated part of northern London; there, it seemed, her
mother had died, a year or so after the birth of her brother Horace.
The relatives of whom she knew were all on her father's side, and
lived scattered about England. When she sought information
concerning her mother, Mr. Lord became evasive and presently silent;
she had seen no portrait of the dead parent. Of late years this
obscure point of the family history had often occupied her thoughts.

Nancy deemed herself a highly educated young woman,--'cultured'
was the word she would have used. Her studies at a day-school which
was reputed 'modern' terminated only when she herself chose to
withdraw in her eighteenth year; and since then she had pursued
'courses' of independent reading, had attended lectures, had thought
of preparing for examinations--only thought of it. Her father
never suggested that she should use these acquirements for the
earning of money; little as she knew of his affairs, it was
obviously to be taken for granted that he could ensure her life-long
independence. Satisfactory, this; but latterly it had become a
question with her how the independence was to be used, and no
intelligible aim as yet presented itself to her roving mind. All she
knew was, that she wished to live, and not merely to vegetate. Now
there are so many ways of living, and Nancy felt no distinct
vocation for any one of them.