e than
her daughter.

'Is my room ready?' Amy inquired on the stairs.

'I'm sorry to say it isn't, dear, as I didn't expect you till tomorrow.
But it shall be seen to immediately.'

This addition to the household was destined to cause grave difficulties
with the domestic slaves. But Mrs Yule would prove equal to the
occasion. On Amy's behalf she would have worked her servants till they
perished of exhaustion before her eyes.

'Use my room for the present,' she added. 'I think the girl has finished
up there. But wait here; I'll just go and see to things.'

'Things' were not quite satisfactory, as it proved. You should have
heard the change that came in that sweetly plaintive voice when it
addressed the luckless housemaid. It was not brutal; not at all. But
so sharp, hard, unrelenting--the voice of the goddess Poverty herself
perhaps sounds like that.

Mad? Was he to be spoken of in a low voice, and with finger pointing to
the forehead? There was something ridiculous, as well as repugnant, in
such a thought; but it kept possession of Amy's mind. She was brooding
upon it when her mother came into the drawing-room.

'And he positively refused to carry out the former plan?'

'Refused. Said it was useless.'

'How could it be useless? There's something so unaccountable in his
behaviour.'

'I don't think it unaccountable,' replied Amy. 'It's weak and selfish,
that's all. He takes the first miserable employment that offers rather
than face the hard work of writing another book.'

She was quite aware that this did not truly represent her husband's
position. But an uneasiness of conscience impelled her to harsh speech.

'But just fancy!' exclaimed her mother. 'What can he mean by asking you
to go and live with him on twenty-five shillings a week? Upon my word.
if his mind isn't disordered he must have made a deliberate plan to get
rid of you.'

Amy shook her head.

'You mean,' asked Mrs Yule, 'that he really thinks it possible for all
of you to be supported on those wages?'

The last word was chosen to express the utmost scorn.

'He talked of earning fifty pounds a year by writing.'

'Even then it could only make about a hundred a year. My dear child,
it's one of two things: either he is out of his mind, or he has
purposely cast you off.'

Amy laughed, thinking of her husband in the light of the latter
alternative.

'There's no need to seek so far for explanations,' she said. 'He has
failed, that's all; j