It had come to her as a matter of course,--either that or the poor-house.

As to earning her bread, except by that attendance which a poor friend gives,--the idea of any possibility that way had never entered her head.

She could do nothing,--except dress like a lady with the smallest possible cost, and endeavour to be obliging.
Now, at this moment, her condition was terribly precarious.

She had quarrelled with Lady Linlithgow, and had been taken in by her old friend Lizzie,--her old enemy might, perhaps, be a truer expression,--because of that quarrel.

But a permanent home had not even been promised to her; and poor Miss Macnulty was aware that even a permanent home with Lady Eustace would not be an unmixed blessing.
In her way, Miss Macnulty was an honest woman.
They were sitting together one May afternoon in the little back drawing-room in Mount Street.