t if I could. Why? Because I think you have
quite enough to do already, and will soon have too much. Just consider.
When Morris goes, what hour of the day will you have to spare? Let us
see;--do you mean to sweep the rooms with your own hands?"

"Yes," said Margaret, smiling.

"And to scour them too?"

"No; not quite that. We shall hire a neighbour to come two or three
times a week to do the rougher parts of the work. But I mean to light
the fire in the morning (and we shall have but one), and get breakfast
ready; and Hester will help me to make the beds. That is nearly all I
shall let her do besides the sewing; for baby will give her employment
enough."

"Indeed, I think so; and that will leave you too much. Do not think,
dear, of earning money. You are doing all you ought in saving it."

"I must think about it, because earning is so much nobler and more
effectual than saving. I cannot help seeing that it would be far better
to earn the amount of Morris's maintenance, than to save it by doing her
work badly myself. Not that I shrink from the labour: I am rather
enjoying the prospect of it, as I told you. Hark! what footstep is
that?"

"I heard it a minute or two ago," whispered Maria, "but I did not like
to mention it."

They listened in the deepest silence for a while. At first they were
not sure whether they heard anything above the beating of their own
hearts; but they were soon certain that there were feet moving outside
the room door.

"The church clock has but lately gone twelve," said Maria, in the faint
hope that it might be some one of the household yet stirring.

Margaret shook her head. She rose softly from her seat, and took a
candle from the table to light it, saying she would go and see. Her
hand trembled a little as she held the match, and the candle would not
immediately light. Meantime, the door opened without noise, and some
one walked in and quite up to the gazing ladies. It was the tall woman.
Maria made an effort to reach the bell, but the tall woman seized her
arm, and made her sit down. A capricious jet of flame from a coal in
the fire at this moment lighted up the face of the stranger for a
moment, and enabled Maria to "spy a creat peard under the muffler."

"What do you want at this time?" said Margaret.

"I want money, and what else I can get," said the intruder, in the no
longer disguised voice of a man. "I have been into your larder, but you
seem to have noth