estate bills for new things which she had ordered for her own country-
house. "I haven't near enough. I am in debt already. People talked as
though I were the richest woman in the world; but when it comes to be
spent, I ain't rich. Why should I give them up if they're my own?"

"Not if they're your own."

"If I give you a present and then die, people can't come and take it away
afterwards because I didn't put it into my will. There'd be no making
presents like that at all." This Lizzie said with an evident conviction in
the strength of her argument.

"But this necklace is so very valuable."

"That can't make a difference. If a thing is a man's own he can give it
away; not a house, or a farm, or a wood, or anything like that, but a
thing that he can carry about with him--of course he can give it away."

"But perhaps Sir Florian didn't mean to give it for always," suggested
Miss Macnulty.

"But perhaps he did. He told me that they were mine, and I shall keep
them. So that's the end of it. You can go to bed now." And Miss Macnulty
went to bed.

Lizzie, as she sat thinking of it, owned to herself that no help was to be
expected in that quarter. She was not angry with Miss Macnulty, who was,
almost of necessity, a poor creature. But she was convinced more strongly
than ever that some friend was necessary to her who should not be a poor
creature. Lord Fawn, though a peer, was a poor creature. Frank Greystock