The Misses Blake looked higher, however, and came to England, where rich
husbands are presumably procurable. Came, but missed their market. Miss
Kathleen found only one lover, William Craven, whose honest affection
she flouted; and Miss Susannah found no lover at all.

Miss Kathleen wanted a duke, or an earl--a prince of the blood royal
being about that time unprocurable; and an attorney, to her Irish ideas,
seemed a very poor sort of substitute. For which reason she rejected the
attorney with scorn, and remained single, the while dukes and earls were
marrying and intermarrying with their peers or their inferiors.

Then suddenly there came a frightful day when Kathleen and Susannah
learned they were penniless, when they understood their trustee had
robbed them, as he had robbed others, and had been paying their interest
out of what was left of their principal.

They tried teaching, but they really had nothing to teach. They tried
letting lodgings. Even lodgers rebelled against their untidiness and
want of punctuality.

The eldest was very energetic and very determined, and the youngest very
pretty and very conciliatory. Nevertheless, business is business, and
lodgings are lodgings, and the Misses Blake were on the verge of
beggary, when Mr. Elmsdale proposed for Miss Kathleen and was accepted.

Mr. Craven, by that time a family man, gave the bride away, and secured
Mr. Elmsdale's business.

Possibly, had Mrs. Elmsdale's marriage proved happy, Mr. Craven might
have soon lost sight of his former love. In matrimony, as in other