ded for the maintenance of
her nephews, their mother was only entitled to have them with her during
the Christmas holidays; and Colonel Ormonde was with some difficulty
persuaded to allow the munificent sum of thirty pounds a year toward the
education of his step-sons.

This definite settlement was a great relief to Katherine's heart. How
earnestly she resolved to keep herself on her infinitesimal stipend, and
save every other penny for her boys! Of the trouble before her, in
removing them from Sandbourne to some inferior, because cheaper, school,
she would not think. Sufficient to the day was the evil thereof.

She therefore applied herself diligently to her duties. These were
varied, though somewhat mechanical.

Mrs. Needham's particular den was a very comfortable, well-furnished
room at the back of the house, crowded with books and newspapers, and
prospectuses, magazines, and all possible impedimenta of journalism, on
the outer edge of which women were beginning with faltering footsteps
tentatively to tread. Mrs. Needham not only wrote "provincial letters"
(with a difference!), but contributed social and statistical papers to
several of the leading periodicals; and one of Katherine's duties was to
write out her rough notes, and make extracts from the books, Blue and
others, the reports and papers which Mrs. Needham had marked. Then there
were lots of letters to be answered and MSS. to be corrected.

Besides these, Mrs. Needham asked Katherine as a favor to help her in
her house-keeping, as it was a thing she hated; "and whatever you do,"
was her concluding instructions, "do not see too much of cook's doings.
She is a clever woman, and after all that can be said about the feast of
reason, the success of my little dinners depends on _her_. I don't think
she takes things, but she is a little reckless, and I never could keep
accounts."

Katherine therefore found her time fully filled. This, however, kept her
from thinking too much, and her kind chief was pleased with all she did.
Her mind was tolerable at rest about the boys, her friends stuck
gallantly to her through the shipwreck of her fortune, and yet her heart
was heavy. She could not look forward with hope, or back without pain.
She dared not even let herself think freely, for she well knew the cause
of her depression, and had vowed to herself to master it, to hide it
away, and never allow her mental vision to dwell upon it. Work, and
interest--enforced, almos