It was a pity, you know, for in those few leisure hours I ought to have been working like a nigger.' 'Plainly you ought.' 'Fortunately, I left Hereford, and went to a school at Gloucester, where I had thirty-five pounds.

How we gloried over that extra five pounds! But it's no use going on with the story in this way; it would take me till to-morrow morning.

Seven years went by; we were thirty years old, and no prospect whatever of our engagement coming to anything.

I had worked pretty hard; I had taken my London degree; but not a penny had I saved, and all I could spare was still needful to my mother.

It struck me all at once that I had no right to continue the engagement.