Miss Buchanan was ruthless about all her relatives; there were few of them, apparently, that she cared for except the English cousins with whom she had spent many years of girlhood, and the Aunt Grizel who made a home for her in London.

To her she alluded with affectionate emphasis: 'Oh, Aunt Grizel is very different from the rest of them.' Aunt Grizel was not well off, but it was she who made Helen the little allowance that enabled her to go about; and she had insured her life, so that at her death, when her annuity lapsed, Helen should be sure of the same modest sum.

'Owing to Aunt Grizel I'll just not starve,' said Helen, with the faint grimace, half bitter, half comic, that sometimes made her strange face still stranger.

'One hundred and fifty pounds a year: think of it! Isn't it damnable?
Yet it's better than nothing, as Aunt Grizel and I often say after groaning together.' Althea, safely niched in her annual three thousand, was indeed horrified.
'One hundred and fifty,' she repeated helplessly.

'Do you mean that you manage to dress on that now ?' 'Dress on it, my dear! I pay all my travelling expenses, my cabs, my stamps, my Christmas presents--everything out of it, as well as buy my clothes.