But these, after all, were mere daydreams, and it was time Mrs. M'Diarmid thought that some real and satisfactory match should be arranged for her dear child. Since the return of the family from Scotland, after Madeleine's illness, Mrs. M'Diarmid either had noticed, or fancied she had noticed, that Lady Muriel was less interested in her stepdaughter than ever, more inclined to let her have her own way, less particular as to who sought her society. Under these circumstances, not merely did Mrs. M'Diarmid's dragon watchfulness increase tenfold, but the necessity of speedily taking her darling into a different atmosphere, and surrounding her with other cares and hopes in life, made itself doubly apparent. For hours and hours the old lady sat in her own little room, cosy little room,--neat, tidy, clean, and wholesome-looking as the old lady herself,--revolving different matrimonial schemes in her mind, guessing at incomes, weighing dispositions, thinking over the traits and characteristics, the health and position of every marriageable man of her acquaintance. And all to no purpose; for the old lady, though a tolerably shrewd and worldly-wise old lady, was a good woman: in the early days of the lodging-house she had had a spirit of religion properly instilled into her; and this, aided by her genuine and unselfish love for Madeleine, would have prevented her from wishing to see the girl married to any one, no matter what were his wealth, position, and general eligibility, unless there was the prospect of her darling's life being a happy one with him. "I don't see my way clear, my dear," she would say to Mrs. Tonkley, the most intimate of her early life acquaintances, and the only one whom the old lady admitted into her confidence (Mrs. Tonkley had been Sarah Simmons, daughter of Simmons's private hotel, and had married Tonkley, London representative of Blades and Buckhorn of Sheffield),--"I don't see my way clear in this business, my dear, and that's the truth. Powers forbid my Madeleine should marry an old man, though among our people it's considered to be about the best thing that could happen to a girl, provided he's old enough, and rich into the bargain. Why, there are old fellows, tottering old wretches, that crawl about with mineral teeth in their mouths and other people's hair on their heads, and they'd only have to say, 'Will you?' to some of the prettiest and the best-born girls in England, and they'd get the answer 'Yes' directly minute! No, no; I've seen too much of that. Not to name names, there's one old fellow, a lord and a general, all stars and garters and crosses and ribbons, and two seasons ago he carried off a lovely girl. I won't put a name to her, my dear, but you've seen her photographic likeness in the portrait-shops; and what is it now? Divorced? Lord, no, my dear; that sort of thing's never done amongst US, nor even separation, so far as the world knows. O no; they live very happily together, to all outward show, and she has her opera-box, and jewels as much as she can wear; but, Lor' bless you, I hear what the young fellows say who come to our house about the way she goes on, and the men who are always about her, and who was meant by the stars and blanks in last week's _Dustman_. No, no; no old wretch for Madeleine; nor any of your fast boys either, with their drags and their yachts, and their hunters and their Market Harboroughs, and their Queen's Benches, I tell'em; for that's what it'll come to. You can't build a house of paper, specially of stamped paper, to last very long; and though you touch it up every three months or so, at about the end of a year down it goes with a run, and you and your wife and the lot of you go with it! That would be a pleasant ending for my child, to have to live at Bolong on what her husband got by winning at cards from the foreigners; and that's not likely to be much, I should think. No; that would never do. I declare to you, my dear Sarah, when I think about that dear girl's future, I am that driven as to be at my wits' end."