ed bravely, for her conscience
was troubling her. Her sympathy was divided equally between these
unfortunate people who had been saddled with an undesired visitor and
herself who had been placed in a position at which every independent
nerve in her rebelled. Even as a child she had loathed being under
obligations to strangers or those whom she did not love.

"Thank you, dear," said Mrs. Mariner, when Jill's voice had roughened
to a weary croak. "You read so well." She wrestled ineffectually with
her handkerchief against the cold in the head from which she had
always suffered. "It would be nice if you would do it every night,
don't you think? You have no idea how tired print makes my eyes."

On the following morning after breakfast, at the hour when she had
hitherto gone house-hunting with Mr. Mariner, the child Tibby, of whom
up till now she had seen little except at meals, presented himself to
her, coated and shod for the open and regarding her with a dull and
phlegmatic gaze.

"Ma says will you please take me for a nice walk!"

Jill's heart sank. She loved children, but Tibby was not an
ingratiating child. He was a Mr. Mariner in little. He had the family
gloom. It puzzled Jill sometimes why this branch of the family should
look on life with so jaundiced an eye. She remembered her father as a
cheerful man, alive to the small humours of life.

"All right, Tibby. Where shall we go?"

"Ma says we must keep on the roads and I mustn't slide."

Jill was thoughtful during the walk. Tibby, who was no
conversationist, gave her every opportunity for meditation. She
perceived that in the space of a few hours she had sunk in the social
scale. If there was any difference between her position and that of a
paid nurse and companion it lay in the fact that she was not paid. She
looked about her at the grim countryside, gave a thought to the chill
gloom of the house to which she was about to return, and her heart
sank.

Nearing home, Tibby vouched his first independent observation.

"The hired man's quit!"

"Has he?"

"Yep. Quit this morning."

It had begun to snow. They turned and made their way back to the
house. The information she had received did not cause Jill any great
apprehension. It was hardly likely that her new duties would include
the stoking of the furnace. That and cooking appeared to be the only
acts about the house which were outside her present sphere of
usefulness.

"He killed a rat once in the woo