Then there was Elizabeth to be reckoned with. Elizabeth would assuredly
make her life a burden to her. Beatrice little guessed that nothing
would suit her sister's book better. Oh, if only she could shake the
dust of Bryngelly off her feet! But that, too, was impossible. She was
quite without money. She might, it was true, succeed in getting another
place as mistress to a school in some distant part of England, were
it not for an insurmountable obstacle. Here she received a salary of
seventy-five pounds a year; of this she kept fifteen pounds, out of
which slender sum she contrived to dress herself; the rest she gave
to her father. Now, as she well knew, he could not keep his head above
water without this assistance, which, small as it was, made all the
difference to their household between poverty and actual want. If she
went away, supposing even that she found an equally well-paid post,
she would require every farthing of the money to support herself, there
would be nothing left to send home. It was a pitiable position; here was
she, who had just refused a man worth thousands a year, quite unable
to get out of the way of his importunity for the want of seventy-five
pounds, paid quarterly.
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