e
with my pore 'usban', miss."

"Don't talk nonsense, Mrs. Rogers. Mr. Hardy hasn't the least intention
of dying; he's getting better as fast as ever he can."

"Oh, miss! don't you sy so! It gives me a turn to 'ear anybody talk so
presumptuous. Don't you do it, m'm. If 'e is a little better, it's enuff
to make the Almighty tyke 'im, jest to 'ear you, miss."

Katherine forgave Mrs. Rogers, for the affectionate woman had helped to
nurse Vincent with a zeal out of all proportion to her knowledge.
Katherine had engaged a night-nurse during the crisis of his illness;
after that, she and Ted nursed him themselves by turns--one sitting up
all night, while the other slept on a bed made up in the sitting-room,
to be within call. Katherine learned to know Ted better in those six
weeks than in all his life before. The boy seemed to be possessed by a
passion of remorse. He was as quiet as Katherine in Vincent's room, and
could do anything that had to be done there with the gentleness and
devotion of a woman. She would willingly have kept on the trained nurse,
in order to give Vincent every advantage in the fight for recovery; but
it was impossible.

For all three of them had come to the end of their resources at the same
time. The Havilands were in debt at last. Vincent had sunk nearly all
his capital in his British Columbian farm, where the agent, in whose
integrity he had guilelessly trusted, worked the land for his own
benefit, and cheated him out of the returns. His mother had left
everything to her second husband. Worse than all was the reprehensible
conduct of Sir Theophilus Parker. The old gentleman had died well within
the term his nephew had given him, but had made no mention of him in his
will, and "Lavernac and three thousand a-year" went to a kinsman of
irreproachable morals, but a Radical, and many degrees more distant
than Vincent from the blood of a Tory squire.

So, after the struggle with death, came the struggle with poverty. Work
was impossible for hands busy with service in the sick-room, and young
brains worn out with watching and anxiety. The most expensive luxuries
were poor Vincent's necessities; for everything depended now on keeping
up his strength.

One morning, after a long night's watching, instead of turning into the
next room to sleep, Katherine put on her hat and cloak and went up to
the deserted studio. She left the house with the "Witch of Atlas" under
her cloak, and carried her to every pic