desire which had fallen upon her of earning money. She had known from
the first that economy would be necessary to her,--not chiefly or
perhaps not at all from a feeling that she and her daughter could not
live comfortably together on a thousand a year,--but on behalf of her
son. She wanted no luxury but a house so placed that people might
conceive of her that she lived in a proper part of the town. Of her
daughter's prudence she was as well convinced as of her own. She could
trust Henrietta in everything. But her son, Sir Felix, was not very
trustworthy. And yet Sir Felix was the darling of her heart.

At the time of the writing of the three letters, at which our story is
supposed to begin, she was driven very hard for money. Sir Felix was
then twenty-five, had been in a fashionable regiment for four years,
had already sold out, and, to own the truth at once, had altogether
wasted the property which his father had left him. So much the mother
knew,--and knew, therefore, that with her limited income she must
maintain not only herself and daughter, but also the baronet. She did
not know, however, the amount of the baronet's obligations;--nor,
indeed, did he, or any one else. A baronet, holding a commission in
the Guards, and known to have had a fortune left him by his father,
may go very far in getting into debt; and Sir Felix had made full use
of all his privileges. His life had been in every way bad. He had
become a burden on his mother so heavy,--and on his sister also,--that
their life had become one of unavoidable embarrassments. But not for a
moment, had either of them ever quarrelled with him. Henrietta had
been taught by the conduct of both father and mother that every vice
might be forgiven in a man and in a son, though every virtue was
expected from a woman, and especially from a daughter. The lesson had
come to her so early in life that she had learned it without the
feeling of any grievance. She lamented her brother's evil conduct as