And even Marie liked Fisker, though she had been wooed and almost won both by a lord and a baronet, and had understood, if not much, at least more than her mother, of the life to which she had been introduced. There was something of real sorrow in her heart for her father. She was prone to love,--though, perhaps, not prone to deep affection. Melmotte had certainly been often cruel to her, but he had also been very indulgent. And as she had never been specially grateful for the one, so neither had she ever specially resented the other. Tenderness, care, real solicitude for her well-being, she had never known, and had come to regard the unevenness of her life, vacillating between knocks and knick-knacks, with a blow one day and a jewel the next, as the condition of things which was natural to her. When her father was dead she remembered for a while the jewels and the knick-knacks, and forgot the knocks and blows. But she was not beyond consolation, and she also found consolation in Mr. Fisker's visits.
"I used to sign a paper every quarter," she said to Fisker, as they were walking together one evening in the lanes round Hampstead.
"You'll have to do the same now, only instead of giving the paper to any one you'll have to leave it in a banker's hands to draw the money for yourself."

And even Marie liked Fisker, though she had been wooed and almost won both by a lord and a baronet. There was real sorrow in her heart for her father. She was prone to love, though, perhaps, not prone to deep affection. Melmotte had been often cruel to her, but he had also been very indulgent. She had never known real tenderness and care, and had come to regard a blow one day and a jewel the next as the natural condition of things. When her father was dead she remembered for a while the jewels, and forgot the blows. But she also found consolation in Mr. Fisker's visits.
"I used to sign a paper every quarter," she said to Fisker, as they were walking together one evening in the lanes round Hampstead.
"You'll have to do the same now, only leave it in a banker's hands to draw the money for yourself."
