home to-morrow.'

Upon hearing this news Mr Grigg thought it best to deliver up the
letter to Meg, but he did it so reluctantly that she hurried away lest
he should reclaim it. Robin was already halfway upstairs, but she soon
overtook him, and a minute afterwards reached their own door. She was
about to put the baby down to take out the key, when, almost without
believing her own eyes, she saw that it was in the lock, and that a
gleam of firelight shone through the chinks of the door. Meg lifted
the latch with a beating heart, and looked in before venturing to
enter. The fire was lighted, but there seemed to be no other
disturbance or change in the attic since the morning, except that in
her mother's low chair upon the hearth there sat a thin slight woman,
like her mother, with the head bowed down, and the face hidden in the
hands. Meg paused, wonder-stricken and speechless, on the door-sill;
but Robin ran forward quickly, with a glad shout of 'Mother! mother!'

At the sound of Robin's step and cry the woman lifted up her face. It
was a white, thin face, but younger than their mother's, though the
eyes were red and sunken, as if with many tears, and there was a gloom
upon it, as if it had never smiled a happy smile. Meg knew it in an
instant as the face of the tenant of the back attic, who had been in
jail for six weeks, and her eye searched anxiously the dark corner
under the bed, where the box was hidden. It seemed quite safe and
untouched, but still Meg's voice was troubled as she spoke.

'I thought I'd locked up all right,' she said, stepping into the room,
while Robin took refuge behind her, and regarded the stranger closely
from his place of safety.

'Ay, it was all right,' answered the girl, 'only you see my key 'd
unlock it; and I felt cold and low coming out of jail to-day; and I'd
no coal, nor bread, nor nothing. So I came in here, and made myself
comfortable. Don't you be crusty, little Meg. You'd be the same if
you'd been locked up for six weeks. I wish I were dead, I do.'

The girl spoke sadly, and dropped her head again upon her hands, while
Meg stood in the middle of the floor, not knowing what to do or say.
She sat down after a while upon the bedstead, and began taking off the
baby's things, pondering deeply all the time what course of action she
ought to follow. She could place herself so as to conceal completely
the box under the bed; but if the girl's key would unlock her attic
door,