raise it in any way; so that after a squabble scarcely less public and
scarcely more decent than the original shock of battle his only issue
from his predicament was a compromise proposed by his legal advisers and
finally accepted by hers.

His debt was by this arrangement remitted to him and the little girl
disposed of in a manner worthy of the judgement-seat of Solomon. She was
divided in two and the portions tossed impartially to the disputants.
They would take her, in rotation, for six months at a time; she would
spend half the year with each. This was odd justice in the eyes of those
who still blinked in the fierce light projected from the tribunal--a
light in which neither parent figured in the least as a happy example to
youth and innocence. What was to have been expected on the evidence was
the nomination, _in loco parentis_, of some proper third person, some
respectable or at least some presentable friend. Apparently, however,
the circle of the Faranges had been scanned in vain for any such
ornament; so that the only solution finally meeting all the difficulties
was, save that of sending Maisie to a Home, the partition of the
tutelary office in the manner I have mentioned. There were more reasons
for her parents to agree to it than there had ever been for them to
agree to anything; and they now prepared with her help to enjoy the
distinction that waits upon vulgarity sufficiently attested. Their
rupture had resounded, and after being perfectly insignificant
together they would be decidedly striking apart. Had they not produced
an impression that warranted people in looking for appeals in the
newspapers for the rescue of the little one--reverberation, amid a
vociferous public, of the idea that some movement should be started or
some benevolent person should come forward? A good lady came indeed a
step or two: she was distantly related to Mrs. Farange, to whom she
proposed that, having children and nurseries wound up and going, she