oon to find a room for us,
and we shall be no worse off than we was before. We've got to work,
that's all, and to earn our living like other women do.'

Her sister stared incredulously.

'You mean to say he's stopped sending money?'

'I have refused to take it.'

'You've done _what_? Well, of all the--!' Comparisons failed her. 'And
I've got to take these children back again into a hole like the last?
Not me! You do as you like; I suppose you know your own business. But if
he doesn't send the money as usual, I'll find some way to make him, see
if I don't! You're off your head, I think.'

Emma had anticipated this, and was prepared to bear the brunt of her
sister's anger. Kate was not originally blessed with much sweetness of
disposition, and an unhappy marriage had made her into a sour, nagging
woman. But, in spite of her wretched temper and the low moral tone
induced during her years of matrimony, she was not evil-natured, and her
chief safeguard was affection for her sister Emma. This seldom declared
itself, for she was of those unhappily constituted people who find
nothing so hard as to betray the tenderness of which they are capable,
and, as often as not, are driven by a miserable perversity to words and
actions which seem quite inconsistent with such feeling. For Jane she
had cared far less than for Emma, yet her grief at Jane's death was more
than could be gathered from her demeanour. It had, in fact, resulted in
a state of nervous irritableness; an outbreak of anger came to her as a
relief, such as Emma had recently found in the shedding of tears. On her
own account she felt strongly, but yet more on Emma's; coarse methods of
revenge naturally suggested themselves to her, and to be thwarted drove
her to exasperation. When Emma persisted in steady opposition, exerting
all the force of her character to subdue her sister's ignoble purposes,
Kate worked herself to frenzy. For more than an hour her voice was
audible in the street, as she poured forth torrents of furious reproach
and menace; all the time Emma stood patient and undaunted, her own anger
often making terrible struggle for mastery, but ever finding itself
subdued. For she, too, was of a passionate nature, but the treasures of
sensibility which her heart enclosed consecrated all her being to
noble ends. One invaluable aid she had in a contest such as this--her
inability to grow sullen. Righteous anger might gleam in her eyes and
quiver upon her lips, b