‘I must do something to get a living,’ she replied, looking vaguely and wistfully into the fire. ‘How unfortunate all this is—that horrid, horrid old man. But supposing he had asked you to marry him—he wasn’t nice, but you are older than I, and if you had married him you would have become, in a way, my stepmother. But what a charming stepmother! Oh, how I should have loved that!’
‘Come, Emily, it is time to go to bed; you let your imagination run away with you.’
‘Julia, you are not cross because——’
‘No, dear, I’m not cross. I’m only a little tired. We have talked too long.’
Emily’s allusion to music-teaching had revived in Julia all her most painful memories. If this man were to cast them penniless out of Ashwood! Supposing, supposing that were to happen? Starving days, pale and haggar
