his happiness to Miss Rowley. And he had thought once or twice
that Trevelyan had wished that such an arrangement might be made
at some future day. Trevelyan had always been much more sanguine
in expecting success for his friend at the Bar than Stanbury had
been for himself. It might well be that such a man as Trevelyan
might think that a clever rising barrister would be an excellent
husband for his sister-in-law, but that a man who earned a precarious
living as a writer for a penny paper would be by no means so
desirable a connection. Stanbury, as he thought of this, declared
to himself that he would not care two straws for Trevelyan in the
matter, if he could see his way without other impediments. But the
other impediments were there in such strength and numbers as to
make him feel that it could not have been intended by Fate that he
should take to himself a wife. Although those letters of his to
the Daily Record had been so pre-eminently successful, he had never
yet been able to earn by writing above twenty-five or thirty pounds
a month. If that might be continued to him he could live upon it
himself; but, even with his moderate views, it would not suffice
for himself and family.

He had told Trevelyan that while living as an expectant barrister
he had no means of subsistence. In this, as Trevelyan knew, he was
not strictly correct. There was an allowance of 100 pounds a year
coming to him from the aunt whose residence at Exeter had induced
him to devote himself to the Western Circuit. His father had been
a clergyman with a small living in Devonshire, and had now been dead
some fifteen years. His mother and two sisters were still living
in a small cottage in his late father's parish, on the interest of
the money arising from a life insurance. Some pittance from sixty
to seventy pounds a year was all they had among them. But there was