Bernard was ill and far away, and the artist had powerfully influenced her.
CHAPTER XVII.
IN POVERTY.
Give me neither poverty nor riches.
The Prayer of Agar.
Doris realised ten pounds by the sale of her stock-in-trade, the materials and the pictures which had not been paid for previously, and then, having altogether one hundred pounds in hand, she imagined herself fairly well off, and with means sufficient to maintain herself in comfort until she could find some other employment.
And now she bought newspapers and frequented public reading-rooms, in order to search through the columns of advertisements in papers and ladies' journals for some post which she could hope to obtain. Her idea of paying back even a small portion of her father's debt to Bernard being now exploded, she hoped to obtain a comfortable home and small salary as lady's companion, or governess, or secretary; and many were the applications for such places that she made personally, or by letter, but always in vain. Having no better reference to give than poor Mrs. Austin, and having had no experience of the work, she was so unfortunate as to meet with refusals everywhere. She was too pretty for some mistresses to tolerate the idea of having her in their homes, and she was too reticent about her parents and home to suit others.
It would have been better for her had she written to some of her old friends in Yorkshire asking if they would allow her to refer people to them, but a mistaken idea that the knowledge of her father's crime might prevent their vouching for his daughter's rectitude prevented her. Since she left Askern she had written only once or twice to Susan Gaunt, and then had given no address but the vague one "London," which caused poor Susan to wring her hands in dismay, and complain that Miss Doris couldn't want to hear from her. Perhaps Mrs. Cameron's insistence on the shame which attached to her as being her father's daughter unduly influenced the girl's mind, for she felt an intense shrinking from renewing her former relations with her old friends.
So it came about that, as weeks and months passed by, Doris found that her money was rapidly diminishing, while her prospects did not brighten. Bernard only wrote once after the first brief note saying that he had arrived at home and received a kind welcome from his mother, and no more letters coming Doris understood that Mrs. Cameron would not permit the correspondence, and therefore she ceased writing.
Mrs. Austin, who had deeply lamented the termination of the picture-business and had even suggested its resuscitation, was loud in expressions of grief and concern.
"To think," she said,--"to think that you, who could earn ever so many pounds a week, cannot now earn as many shillings! It all comes of that Mr. Sinclair's coming here unsettling you! But there, I won't say any more about him, Miss Anderson dear, since you don't like me to do so."