e to be
believed guilty. She had heard of people suffering Death for bloodshed
of which they were afterwards proved pure, and those ill-fated persons
were not, first, in that dangerous wrong in which her father stood. Then
at the best, the beginning of his being set apart, whispered against,
and avoided, was a certain fact. It dated from that very night. And as
the great black river with its dreary shores was soon lost to her view
in the gloom, so, she stood on the river's brink unable to see into the
vast blank misery of a life suspected, and fallen away from by good and
bad, but knowing that it lay there dim before her, stretching away to
the great ocean, Death.

One thing only, was clear to the girl's mind. Accustomed from her very
babyhood promptly to do the thing that could be done--whether to keep
out weather, to ward off cold, to postpone hunger, or what not--she
started out of her meditation, and ran home.

The room was quiet, and the lamp burnt on the table. In the bunk in the
corner, her brother lay asleep. She bent over him softly, kissed him,
and came to the table.

'By the time of Miss Abbey's closing, and by the run of the tide, it
must be one. Tide's running up. Father at Chiswick, wouldn't think of
coming down, till after the turn, and that's at half after four. I'll
call Charley at six. I shall hear the church-clocks strike, as I sit
here.'

Very quietly, she placed a chair before the scanty fire, and sat down in
it, drawing her shawl about her.

'Charley's hollow down by the flare is not there now. Poor Charley!'

The clock struck two, and the clock struck three, and the clock struck
four, and she remained there, with a woman's patience and her own
purpose. When the morning was well on between four and five, she slipped
off her shoes (that her going about, might not wake Charley), trimmed
the fire sparingly, put water on to boil, and set the table for
breakfast. Then she went up the ladder, lamp in hand, and came down
again, and glided about and about, making a little bundle. Lastly, from
her pocket, and from the chimney-piece, and from an inverted basin
on the highest shelf she brought halfpence, a few sixpences, fewer
shillings, and fell to laboriously and noiselessly counting them, and
setting aside one little heap. She was still so engaged, when she was
startled by:

'Hal-loa!' From her brother, sitting up in bed.

'You made me jump, Charley.'

'Jump! Didn't you make ME jump, when I ope