So, in spite of the expected wedding, there was little change in the dull life that went on at No. 15.  Its only brightness was when Miss Hilary came home from Saturday to Monday.  And in those brief glimpses, when, as was natural, she on her side, and they on theirs, put on their best face, so to speak, each trying to hide from the other any special care, it so fell out that Miss Hilary never discovered a thing which, week by week, Elizabeth resolved to speak to her about, and yet never could.  For it was not her own affair; it seemed like presumptuously middling in the affairs of the family.  Above all, it involved the necessity of something which looked like tale-bearing and backbiting of a person she disliked, and there was in Elizabeth—­servant as she was—­an instinctive chivalrous honor which made her especially anxious to be just to her enemies.

Enemy, however, is a large word to use; and yet day by day her feelings grew more bitter toward the person concerned—­namely.  Mr. Ascott Leaf.  It was not from any badness in him:  he was the sort of young man always likely to be a favorite with what would be termed his “inferiors;” easy, good-tempered, and gentlemanly, giving a good deal of trouble certainly, but giving it so agreeably that few servants would have grumbled, and paying for it—­as he apparently thought every thing could be paid for—­with a pleasant word and a handful of silver.

But Elizabeth’s distaste for him had deeper roots.  The principal one was his exceeding indifference to his aunts’ affairs, great and small, from the marriage, which he briefly designated as a “jolly lark,” to the sharp economies which, even with the addition of Miss Hilary’s salary, were still requisite.—­None of these latter did he ever seem to notice, except when they pressed upon himself; when he neither scolded nor argued, but simply went out and avoided them.

He was now absent from home more than ever, and apparently tried as much as possible to keep the household in the dark as to his movements—­leaving at uncertain times, never saying what hour he would be back, or if he said so, never keeping to his word.  This was the more annoying as there were a number of people continually inquiring for him, hanging about the house, and waiting to see him “on business;” and some of these occasionally commented on the young gentleman in such unflattering terms that Elizabeth was afraid they would reach the ear of Mrs. Jones, and henceforward tried always to attend to the door herself.

But Mrs. Jones was a wide awake woman.  She had not let lodgings for thirty years for nothing.  Ere long she discovered, and took good care to inform Elizabeth of her discovery, that Mr. Ascott Leaf was what is euphuistically termed “in difficulties.”

And here one word, lest in telling this poor lad’s story I may be supposed to tell it harshly or uncharitably, as if there was no crime greater than that which a large portion of society seems to count as none; as if, at the merest mention of the ugly word debt, this rabid author flew out, and made all the ultra virtuous persons whose history is here told fly out, like turkeys, after a bit of red cloth which is a very harmless scrap of red cloth after all.