"Poor Fred! He says, Winifred, that some people are born to work and some to spend, and he certainly was not born to work. Sometimes I think that Fred never will get any more work to do at all. You know, he does try; he goes into the City, I believe, at least once a week— and everybody knows it is in the City that you pick up rich posts. Once he was made secretary to a company. His friend, Lord Rodney Benbow, got him the post. To be sure, the company broke up in a month; but then, as Fred says, it gave him the business experience that he wanted. Winifred, don't let Marion know that I told you about our distress; she is proud, and would not like it. As if it matters now," she said, with a bitter laugh "as if it matters for all the world to know how poor we are! Let them know. We have not had a single friend to care whether we starve or not."

Oh, Adie, you have me."

"It is a horrid thing to be poor," she went on, passionately. "It is a cruel thing, a wrong thing, a wretched thing to be poor. Marion seems to think it enough if we get our miserable meals day by day."

"Give us this day our daily bread, Adie,” said Winifred.

"I know. But my bread ought to be more than breakfast and dinner and tea. I want things, Winifred, that other girls have. What is the good of life where there is no pleasure— nothing but working day after day to get enough to eat?"

"But we cannot have all we want to have," said the telegraph girl, letting her thoughts loose vaguely in the field of boundless impossibilities.

"Why can't we? Once I had all that I wanted; it was not much, to be sure, for I was only sixteen, and satisfied with little. Now I am twenty, I want to live."

"Adie, do you think it is right to talk so."

"Right or not, I do so because I think so. Yesterday I went out with Fred for a walk. He will not take me to Regent-street or the Park, for fear of meeting his old college friends. You see, Winifred, this is the only dress I have got. I can trim it up after the fashion, but I can't turn it into a new dress. Fred keeps up appearances better-I do not know how. Well, he is ashamed to be seen with his sisters in the street.

We walked part of the way down Oxford-street, turned to the right up Berners-street, and then, after seven o'clock, when all the gentlemen were having dinner, and Fred was not afraid of meeting any one he knew, we went down Bond-street and Piccadilly. As we came home through the squares, the people were driving off to dinner; in one or two houses we could see them sitting. down, ladies and gentlemen-ah, happy people! -dining properly, and with servants to wait. Some other people, not so happy, but better off than ourselves, were going to the theatres. We came home. Neither Fred nor I had a single sixpence between us. When we got home, we found Marion sitting with a single light, trying to draw an outline. She had no money either. Fred smoked, nobody spoke, because we were all three too miserable; and about ten we went to bed. We had had neither tea nor supper, and Marion sat all the evening with her head on her hand. Poor Marion! Poor Fred! Poor me! You don't mean, Winifred, that I should like this life?"

A grunt escaped the lips of the schoolmaster, but he said nothing. Adie looked up a moment, and went on, in a lower voice

"Fred keeps up his spirits and mine too, as well as he can, the dear fellow. He is always cheerful; he says that something will happen to make us all comfortable again. But it is worse for Marion, because she has all the work to do, poor thing! She is different from both of us, I think; and takes things more seriously. To be sure, where should we be without her?"

"When Fred-I mean your brother," said Winifred "gets the place he wants, it will be better, will it not? He will do something for you. It would be dreadful for him to go on for ever allowing Marion to work for both of you."

"That is what he says and thinks. Fred has, only you would not think it unless you knew him as well I do, the noblest of hearts. He says that this living on the proceeds of Marion's work is killing him, and I am sure that he is getting thinner. He declares that he is ready to take any kind of work that offers. Of course, you know, Winifred, it must be such work as a gentleman can do. Now and then Dr. Chacomb suggests something; but Fred has got an aversion to the doctor, and his way of looking at

things. Above all, as Fred says, he is a gentleman, and, if he pleased, a nobleman."

"Yes, dear, I know."

There was another grunt from the school

master.

"I read once," he said, without looking round, "of a nobleman in France who fell into poverty. He resolved on giving up his title and forgetting his rank. He handed his sword to the Mayor of Bordeaux, and went away. When he came home after twenty years, enriched by trade, he demanded back, and received again, the sword of his ancestors."

Adie listened politely.

"You had better tell Fred that story, Mr. Owen," she said, with a laugh. "I should like to see Fred depositing my father's sword with the Lord Mayor of London while he went about, on Dr. Chacomb's suggestion, as an advertising tout. That was the last advice, I bclieve."

"There are good families in Wales," said Rhyl Owen, "as well as in France. My father, Ap Rhyl, whose father was Ap Owen, used to boast of our descent from Llewellyn, who was a king.