A Waif's Progress by Rhoda Broughton — Read

The spring drew on disagreeably, according to its vernal wont. But if the thermometer did not tell that winter was on the wane, the lengthening days did so, and the flower-baskets in the streets told the town-dweller what sheets of anemone and narcissus were spreading over the pleasant fields of France, and scenting the sea round Scilly. As to the temperature, what did that matter in London? Warmed by every one else's fire as well as your own, you had pity enough and to spare for shiverers in the odious country, but not much need for compassion yourself.

Such were a part of Miss Ransome's reflections on the 10th of March. So far they were comfortable ones; but they shared the theatre of her mind with many less complacent -- with many deep misgivings. Tom had not yet re-appeared on the scene, having transferred himself and his fishing-tackle to a wild part of Ireland; but his re-entrance could hardly be much longer delayed. That it was imminent Bonnybell gathered by the increased frequency of Felicity's lamentations over the necessity for their ever parting. That it was _not_ a necessity never seemed to occur to her, even in mid-Jeremiad; even when Bonnybell, with a touch too light to brush the bloom from a butterfly's wing, threw in an infinitely far-off hint to that effect. The satisfaction which she therefore derived from being continually told that she was Lady Bletchley's right hand was a very mutilated one. No sign of flinching on the part of that heroic lady from the intention of cutting off that right hand was perceptible to eyes that daily and hourly grew more strainingly anxious to discover it. To make herself indispensable, that was her one chance. It had always been the leading principle of her actions since her enforced return; but she was also by nature eminently obliging and _serviable_. Nor did she slack her efforts, even when each day added something to her conviction that they were going to be useless. "I shall be dismissed on the day before Tom's return," she said to herself, with lugubrious shrewdness. "Felicity will not turn me out earlier, for her own sake, and also because she is rather compunctious about me. That is why she is thrusting me down Mrs. Slammer's throat."