ure you have earned
it. We will have it quietly together before Ada comes back. I feel so
relieved, I shall be able to eat now."

CHAPTER V.

"INTO THE SHADOWS."

To avoid Mrs. Frederic Liddell's almost screaming curiosity was not
easy, and to appease it Kate assumed an air of frankness, saying that
she believed Mr. Liddell merely wished to test her powers as secretary,
and that she hoped she had not succeeded too well.

"Oh, you lazy thing! You really ought to try and get in with him.
Oughtn't she, Mrs. Liddell?"

"Yes, certainly, if she can; but I fancy it will not be so easy. What
are you going to do to-day, Ada?"

"Oh, nothing"--in a rather discontented tone. "Why do you ask?"

"Because I am obliged to go into town on a matter of business, and I
want to take Katherine."

"Well, I will look after the boys"--condescendingly, as if it were not
her legitimate business. "But I really think you worry too much about
those tiresome publishers. They would think more of you if you troubled
them less. Your mother looks pale and fagged, Katherine."

"Yes, she does indeed," looking anxiously at her.

"I am afraid the publishers would leave me too utterly undisturbed if I
left them alone," returned Mrs. Liddell, smiling, and leaving the
suggestion uncontradicted. This conversation took place at breakfast.

Mother and daughter made the journey cityward very silently, both a good
deal occupied conjecturing what conditions John Liddell could possibly
mean to impose. Perhaps only a very high rate of interest, which would
cost no small effort to spare from their narrow income.

Mr. Newton received his visitors directly their names were sent up to
him. His was an eminent firm; their offices, light, clean, well
furnished, an abode which impressed those who entered with the idea of
fair dealing, and forbade the notion of dark dusty corners moral or
physical.

Katherine's quick eyes took in the aspect of the place: the bookshelves,
where stores of legal learning in calf-bound volumes were ranged: the
various brown tin boxes with names in white paint suggestive of the
title-deeds "of all the land"; the big knee-hole table loaded with
papers; the heavy chairs upholstered in the best leather for the
patients who came to be treated; and Mr. Newton himself, more intensely
cleaned up and starched than ever, in an oaken seat of mediaeval form.

He rose and set chairs for Mrs. Liddell and her daughter himself; then
he ru