ector to let Mile End alone. Henslowe had
been over there in the afternoon, and had given them all very plainly to
understand that if Mr. Elsmere meddled any more they would be all turned
out at a week's notice to shift as they could, 'And if you don't find
Thurston Common nice lying this weather, with the winter coming on,
you'll know who to thank for it,' the agent had flung behind him as he
rode off.

Robert turned white. Rose, watching the little scene with listless eyes,
saw him towering over the group like an embodiment of wrath and pity.

'If they turn us out, sir,' said old Milsom, wistfully looking up at
Elsmere with blear eyes, 'there'll be nothing left but the House for
us old 'uns. Why, lor' bless you, sir, it's not so bad but we can make
shift.'

'You, Milsom!' cried Robert; 'and you've just all but lost your
grandchild! And you know your wife'll never be the same woman since that
bout of fever in the spring. And----'

His quick eyes ran over the old man's broken frame with a world of
indignant meaning in them.

'Aye, aye, sir,' said Milsom, unmoved. 'But if it isn't fevers, it's
summat else. I can make a shilling or two where I be, speshally in the
first part of the year, in the basket work, and my wife she goes charing
up at Mr. Carter's farm, and Mr. Dodson, him at the further farm, he
do give us a bit sometimes. Ef you git us turned away it will be a bad
day's work for all on us, sir, you may take my word on it.'

'And my wife so ill' Mr. Elsmere,' said Sharland, 'and all those
childer! I can't walk three miles further to my work, Mr. Elsmere, I
can't nohow. I haven't got the legs for it. Let un be, Sir. We'll rub
along.'

Robert tried to argue the matter.

If they would but stand by him he would fight the matter through, and
they should not suffer, if he had to get up a public subscription, or
support them out of his own pocket all the winter. A bold front, and Mr.
Henslowe must give way. The law was on their side, and every laborer in
Surrey would be the better off for their refusal to be housed like pigs
and poisoned like vermin.

In vain. There is an inexhaustible store of cautious endurance in the
poor against which the keenest reformer constantly throws himself in
vain. Elsmere was beaten. The two men got his word, and shuffled off
back to their pestilential hovels, a pathetic content beaming on each
face.

Catherine and Robert went back into the study. Rose heard her
brother-in-law'