She fell into a low, nervous state of prostration, and her irritability--it must be confessed--was great.

But for this illness, Lionel would have been away.

Thrown now upon his own resources, he looked steadily into the future, and strove to chalk out a career for himself; one by which--as he had said to Lucy Tempest--he might earn bread and cheese.

Of course, at Lionel Verner's age, and reared to no profession, unfamiliar with habits of business, that was easier thought of than done.

He had no particular talent for literature; he believed that, if he tried his hand at that, the bread might come, but the cheese would be doubtful--although he saw men, with even less aptitude for it than he, turning to it and embracing it with all the confidence in the world, as if it were an ever-open resource for all, when other trades failed.