It was all in vain that Mr. Clifford tried to turn Felicita from her resolution. Phebe cordially upheld her, and gave her courage to persist against all arguments. Both of them cared little for poverty—Phebe because she knew it, Felicita because she did not know it. Felicita had never known a time when money had to be considered; it had come to her pretty much in the same way as the air she breathed and the food she ate, without any care or prevision of her own. Phebe, on the other hand, knew that she could earn her own living at any time by the work of her strong young arms, and her wants were so few that they could easily be supplied.

It was decided before Phebe went home again, and decided in the face of Mr. Clifford's opposition, that a small house should be taken in London, and partly furnished from the old house at Riversborough, where Felicita would be in closer and easier communication with the publishers. Mr. Clifford laughed to himself at the idea that she could gain a maintenance by literature, as all the literary people he had ever met or heard of bewailed their poverty. But there was Madame's little income of two hundred a year: that formed a basis, not altogether an insecure or despicable one. It would pay more than the rent, with the rates and taxes.

The yearly income from Felicita's marriage settlement, which no representations could persuade her to touch, was to go to the gradual repayment of Roland's debts, the poorest men being paid first, and Mr. Clifford, who reluctantly consented to the scheme, to receive his the last. Though Madame had never believed in her son's guilt, her just and simple soul was satisfied and set at rest by this arrangement. She had not been able to blame him, but it had been a heavy burden to her to think of others suffering loss through him. It was then almost with cheerfulness that she set herself to keep house for her daughter-in-law and her grand-children under such widely different circumstances.

Before Christmas a house was found for them in Cheyne Walk. The Chelsea Embankment was not then thought of, and the streets leading to it, like those now lying behind it, were mean and crowded. It was a narrow house, with rooms so small that when the massive furniture from their old house was set up in it there was no space for moving about freely. Madame had known only two houses—the old straggling, picturesque country manse in the Jura, with its walnut-trees shading the windows, and tossing up their branches now and then to give glimpses of snow-mountains on the horizon, and her husband's pleasant and luxurious house at Riversborough, with every comfort that could be devised gathered into it. There was the river certainly flowing past this new habitation, and bearing on its full and rapid tide a constantly shifting panorama of boats, of which the children never tired, and from Felicita's window there was a fair reach of the river in view, while from the dormer windows of the attic above, where Felix slept, there was a still wider prospect. But in the close back room, which Madame allotted to herself and Hilda, there was only a view of back streets and slums, with sights and sounds which filled her with dismay and disgust.

But Madame made the best of the woeful change. The deep, quiet love she had given to her son she transferred to Felicita, who, she well knew, had been his idol. She believed that the sorrows of these last few months had not sprung out of the ground, but had for some reason come down from God, the God of her fathers, in whom she put her trust. Her son had been called away by Him; but three were left, her daughter and her grand-children, and she could do nothing better in life than devote herself to them.

But to Felicita her new life was like walking barefoot on a path of thorns. Until now she had been so sheltered and guarded, kept from the wind blowing too roughly upon her, that every hour brought a sharp pin-prick to her. To have no carriage at her command, no maid to wait upon, her—not even a skilful servant to discharge ordinary household duties well and quickly—to live in a little room where she felt as if she could hardly breathe, to hear every sound through the walls, to have the smell of cooking pervade the house—these and numberless similar discomforts made her initiation into her new sphere a series of surprises and disappointments.

But she must bestir herself if even this small amount of comfort and well-being were to be kept up. Madame's income would not maintain their household even on its present humble footing. Felicita's first book had done well; it had been fairly reviewed by some papers, and flatteringly reviewed by other critics who had known the late Lord Riversford. On the whole it had been a good success, and her name was no longer quite unknown. Her publishers were willing to take another book as soon as it could be ready: they did more, they condescended to ask for it. But the £50 they had paid for the first, though it had seemed a sufficient sum to her when regarded from the stand-point of a woman surrounded by every luxury, and able to spend the whole of it on some trinket, looked small enough—too small—as the result of many weeks of labor, by which she and her children were to be fed. If her work was worth no more than that, she must write at least six such books in the year, and every year! Felicita's heart sank at the thought!

There seemed to be only one resource, since one of her publishers had offered an advance of £10 only, saying they were doing very well for her, and running a risk themselves. She must take her manuscript and offer it as so much merchandise from house to house, selling it to the best bidder. This was against all her instincts as an author, and if she had remained a wealthy woman she would not have borne it. She was too true and original an artist not to feel how sacred a thing earnest and truthful work like hers was. She loved it, and did it conscientiously. She would not let it go out of her hands disgraced with blunders. Her thoughts were like children to her, not to be sent out into the world ragged and uncouth, exposed to just ridicule and to shame.

Felicita and Madame set out on their search after a liberal publisher on a gloomy day in January. For the first time in her life Felicita found herself in an omnibus, with her feet buried in damp straw, and strange fellow-passengers crushing against her. In no part of London do the omnibuses bear comparison with the well-appointed carriages rich people are accustomed to; and this one, besides other discomforts, was crowded till there was barely room to move hand or foot.

"It is very cheap," said Madame cheerfully after she had paid the fare when they were set down in Trafalgar Square "and not so very inconvenient."

A fog filled the air and shrouded all the surrounding buildings in dull obscurity; while the fountains, rising and falling with an odd and ghostly movement as of gigantic living creatures, were seen dimly white in the midst of the gray gloom. The ceaseless stream of hurrying passers-by lost itself in darkness only a few paces from them. The chimes of unseen belfries and the roll of carriages visible only for a few seconds fell upon their ears. Felicita, in the secret excitement of her mood, felt herself in some impossible world, some phantasmagoria of a dream, which must presently disperse, and she would find herself at home again, in her quiet, dainty study at Riversborough, where most of the manuscript, which she held so closely in her hand, had been written. But the dream was dispelled when she found herself entering the publishing-house she had fixed upon as her first scene of venture. It was a quiet place, with two or three clerks busily engaged in some private conversation, too interesting to be abruptly terminated by the entrance of two ladies dressed in mourning, one of whom carried a roll of manuscript. If Felicita had been wise the manuscript would not have been there to betray her. It made it exceedingly difficult for her to obtain admission to the publisher, in his private room beyond; and it was only when she turned away to go, with a sudden outflashing of aristocratic haughtiness, that the clerk reluctantly offered to take her card and a message to his employer.

In a few moments Felicita was entering the dark den where the fate of her book was in the balance. Unfortunately for her she presented too close a resemblance to the well-known type of a distressed author. Her deep mourning, the thick veil almost concealing her face; a straw clinging to the hem of her dress and telling too plainly of omnibus-riding; her somewhat sad and agitated voice; Madame's widow's cap, and unpretending demeanor—all were against her chances of attention. The publisher, who had risen from his desk, did not invite them to be seated. He glanced at Felicita's card, which bore the simple inscription, "Mrs. Sefton."

"You know my name?" she asked, faltering a little before his keen-eyed, shrewd, business-like observation. He shook his head slightly.

"I am the writer of a book called 'Haughmond Towers,'" she added, "published by Messrs. Price and Gould. It came out last May."

"I never heard of it," he answered solemnly. Felicita felt as if he had struck her. This was an unaccountable thing; he was a publisher, and she an author; yet he had never heard of her book. It was impossible that she had understood him, and she spoke again eagerly.

"It was noticed in all the reviews," she said, "and my publishers assured me it was quite a success. I could send you the reviews of it."

"Pray do not trouble yourself," he answered; "I do not doubt it in the least. But there are hundreds of books published every season, and it is impossible for one head, even a publisher's, to retain all the titles and the names of the authors."

"But I hope mine was not like hundreds of others," remarked Felicita.

"Every author hopes so," he said; "and besides the mass that is printed, somehow, at some one's expense, there are hundreds of manuscripts submitted to us. Pardon me, but may I ask if you write for amusement or for remuneration."

"For my living," she replied, with a sorrowful inflection of her voice which alarmed the publisher. How often had he faced a widowed mother and her daughter, in mourning so deep as to suggest the recentness of their loss. There was a slight movement of his hand, unperceived by either of them, and a brisk rap was heard on the door behind them.

"In a moment," he said, looking over their heads. "I am afraid," he went on, "if I asked you to leave your manuscript on approbation, it might be months before our readers could look at it. We have scores, if not hundreds, waiting."

"Could you recommend any publisher to me?" asked Felicita.

"Why not go again to Price and Gould?" he inquired.

"I must get more money than they pay me," she answered ingenuously.

The publisher shrugged his shoulders. If her manuscript had contained Milton's "Paradise Lost" or Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield," such an admission would have swamped it. There is no fate swift enough for an unknown author who asks for more money than that which a publisher's sense of justice awards to him.

"I am sorry I can do nothing for you," he said, "but my time is very precious. Good-morning—No thanks, I beg. It would be a pleasure, I am sure, if I could do anything."

Felicita's heart sank very low as she turned into the dismal street and trod the muddy pavement. A few illusions shrivelled up that wintry morning under that murky sky. The name she was so fearful of staining; the name she had fondly imagined as noised from mouth to mouth; the name for which she had demanded so great a sacrifice, and had sacrificed so much herself, was not known in those circles where she might most have expected to find it a passport to attention and esteem. It had travelled very little indeed beyond the narrow sphere of Riversborough.