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portunity.
Miss Wilkinson was dissatisfied with her lot. She resent-
ed having to earn her living and told Philip a long story of
an uncle of her mother’s, who had been expected to leave
her a fortune but had married his cook and changed his
will. She hinted at the luxury of her home and compared
her life in Lincolnshire, with horses to ride and carriages
to drive in, with the mean dependence of her present state.
Philip was a little puzzled when he mentioned this after-
wards to Aunt Louisa, and she told him that when she knew
the Wilkinsons they had never had anything more than a
pony and a dog-cart; Aunt Louisa had heard of the rich un-
cle, but as he was married and had children before Emily
was born she could never have had much hope of inherit-
ing his fortune. Miss Wilkinson had little good to say of
Berlin, where she was now in a situation. She complained
of the vulgarity of German life, and compared it bitterly
with the brilliance of Paris, where she had spent a number
of years. She did not say how many. She had been govern-
ess in the family of a fashionable portrait-painter, who had
married a Jewish wife of means, and in their house she had
met many distinguished people. She dazzled Philip with
their names. Actors from the Comedie Francaise had come
to the house frequently, and Coquelin, sitting next her at
dinner, had told her he had never met a foreigner who spoke
such perfect French. Alphonse Daudet had come also, and
he had given her a copy of Sappho: he had promised to write
her name in it, but she had forgotten to remind him. She
treasured the volume none the less and she would lend it to

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