daughter. In her own marriage she had set aside all considerations
but those of social rank. She had made it a stepping-stone to a
higher place in society than the one to which she was born. Still,
above them stood many millionnaire families, living in palace-homes,
and through her daughter she meant to rise into one of them. It
mattered not for the personal quality of the scion of the house; he
might be as coarse and common as his father before him, or weak,
mean, selfish, and debased by sensual indulgence. This was of little
account. To lift Edith to the higher social level was the all in all
of Mrs. Dinneford's ambition.

But Mr. Dinneford taught Edith a nobler life-lesson than this, gave
her better views of wedlock, pictured for her loving heart the bliss
of a true marriage, sighing often as he did so, but unconsciously,
at the lost fruition of his own sweet hopes. He was careful to do
this only when alone with Edith, guarding his speech when Mrs.
Dinneford was present. He had faith in true principles, and with
these he sought to guard her life. He knew that she would be pushed
forward into society, and knew but too well that one so pure and
lovely in mind as well as person would become a centre of
attraction, and that he, standing on the outside as it were, would
have no power to save her from the saddest of all fates if she were
passive and her mother resolute. Her safety must lie in herself.

Edith was brought out early. Mrs. Dinneford could not wait. At
seventeen she was thrust into society, set up for sale to the
highest bidder, her condition nearer that of a Circassian than a
Christian maiden, with her mother as slave-dealer.

So it was and so, it is. You may see the thing every day. But it did