How much more keenly did she feel the shame at the age of fifteen! Priscilla did her best to lessen the pain of her pupil's departure.
"It isn't that I've any fault to find with you, Diana, though you must remember that I have heard some complaints of your temper," she said, with gentle gravity; "but your father is too trying.

If he didn't make me any promises, I should think better of him.

If he told me frankly that he couldn't pay me, and asked me to keep you out of charity,"-- Diana drew herself up with a little shiver at this word,--"why, I might turn it over in my mind, and see if it could be done.

But to be deceived time after time, as I've been deceived--you know the solemn language your father has used, Diana, for you have heard him--and to rely on a sum of money on a certain date, as I have relied again and again, after Horatio's assurance that I might depend upon him--it's too bad, Diana; it's more than any one can endure.

If you were two or three years older, and further advanced in your education, I might manage to do something for you by making you useful with the little ones; but I can't afford to keep you and clothe you during the next three years for nothing, and so I have no alternative but to send you home." The "home" to which Diana Paget was taken upon this occasion was a lodging over a toyshop in the Westminster-road, where the Captain lived in considerable comfort on the proceeds of a Friendly and Philanthropic Loan Society.
But no very cordial welcome awaited Diana in the gaudily-furnished drawing-room over the toyshop.