A Struggle for a Ring — page 66: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

62 “KEEP MY NAME AND RANK A SECRET?’ managed, dirty, gloomy house, the best rooms in it given up to the pupils, the windows that would never open with- out falling, the doors that would not shut, the generally greasy appearance of everything—her heart sank. Then her mother had deteriorated since her marriage with the dancing-master. She was listless, always tired, always dis- contented, and went to two extremes in dress—she was either quite unfit to be seen, or she wore some piece of finery quite unsuited to her position. If John Derwent resisted, she told him, with a sigh, that she could not for- get what she had been; his rejoinder was, it would be far better to remember what she was. Ailie thought of all these things with a sigh, while her husband wondered she did not show him more gratitude for this, his intended kindness. They agreed very well on the whole; it was by no means an unhappy marriage. If ever any wife worshiped a hus- band—faults, virtues, imperfections, and all together—Ailie worshiped Lord Carsdale. She was too clever not to see his faults, not to understand his little weaknesses, not to see that he liked to patronize and expected. gratitude for it; but, in spite of all, she worshiped him. She rarely said so; indeed, the matter of love was not often discussed between them; it was an understood thing that Lord -Carsdale had married her, nct from love—there was no delusion in the matter; love had nothing whatever to do with it—but because he had by his own carelessness brought her into such a position, he saw no other way to save her. He had admired her, he had liked her so much, and had felt such sympathetic pity for her, that he had gone out of his way to give her that one day’s pleasure; he had merely done it, as he would have tipped a school- boy, out of the royal generosity of his heart; but when he (e(0) m icomicbhoo ral he