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I shall pretend to ask for a loaf, you know. We can't have the school dropping to pieces just yet, can we? Dear old father, you have yet to work a year or two longer, until your daughter can make money enough to keep you."

Left alone, the schoolmaster sat down and pondered. The house was quiet and lonely. He thought of his bright and pretty girl; he thought of the idler whose fancy she had caught; he wondered what was best to be done. Outside the house, in the street, the children shouted and played; within there was the silence of the grave. And he thought of the two friendless girls above him, and one of them so helpless.

"Between most of us and starvation," he said, "there's only the mercy of the Lord. Thank Him, it's a thickish plank."

Presently he heard a heavy foot mount the stairs, and stop at the Revels' door.

CHAPTER II.

HE visitor knocked at Miss Revel's door. Getting no reply, he gently turned the handle and looked in.

Its only occupant, Adie, was sitting

in the dusk at one of the windows, pressing her cheek against the glass, and gazing, with her thoughts far away, at the passers below. The gas from the street and the shop over the way lit up the room. In the softened twilight and the dim illumination you could perceive that the room was comfortably furnished with easy chairs, a sofa, a piano, and a few water-colour paintings. The light was not strong enough to show that the covering of chairs and sofa was worn in holes and faded, that the carpet was ragged, that the piano bore marks of age and use. An easel stood at one window, and by it

a small stand with paints and canvas. In the centre was a table covered with work, over which Adie's fingers had been busy during the day. She was not idle, for she kept the wardrobe of her sister and herself, and maintained, in spite of all difficulties, the neatness of her brother's linen. The new-comer, who was indeed no other than Dr. Chacomb, stepped across with the noiseless tread affected by some heavy men, and laid his hand gently on Adie's.

"You?" she started. "I did not hear any one open the door. I thought you had deserted us, Dr. Chacomb. It is nearly six months since

you came to see us last."

"I got very little encouragement in my last visit," he said. "I am not quite certain that I ought to come here again at all."

"Did Fred say anything to annoy you? You remember that you annoyed him very much."

"So that he had the right to annoy me in return, you mean. No, it was not your brother's little outbreak of temper. I hardly know what that young man could do which would annoy me. He might surprise me, certainly. If he were to get his living in any honest way, it

But he would never annoy

would surprise me.

me."

"Do not say unkind things about Fred," said Adie. "For my own part, I should be extremely sorry to have him making his living as an advertising tout; and that, you know, was what you advised him to become."

"That is about the only thing he is fit for," said the doctor.

"Well, if it was not Fred, who was it-Marion or myself?"

"As it was not you, it was of course your sister."

"I declare," said Adie, pettishly, "it is too provoking. What did Marion say or do, I should like to know? You are absolutely the only decent creature left in the world-not to speak of dear little Winifred Owen-that comes to see us, and you take offence at some nonsensical fancy of your own. Oh, why are men so stupid?"

"Hardly a nonsensical fancy," said the doctor. "It was real hard fact. Where is Marion?”

"I do not know. She went to Burls's shop. Perhaps she stayed there to finish off something;

perhaps she had to go over Waterloo Bridge to Hermann's. She may be in any moment. Sit down and be comfortable, and tell me all about it."

"Tell me first how you have been getting on since last I saw you."

"We have been getting on worse and worse. I think we did have some money, a little, left when you came last. That is all gone now. And Marion has not been doing very well for the last three months. At present, we have

nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing at all. Not a sixpence in the world. We paid our rent for the quarter out of Marion's dividends. Then we had a little money left to live upon; we have got nothing now, and out of that we have to save up for next quarter's rent, and live besides. It's like what papa used to call a midshipman's half-pay."

The doctor was silent.

"Yesterday we had no dinner. To-day we have had no dinner. I do not know what poor Marion has done; but I went downstairs, when I was so hungry that I could not bear myself any

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