n's sake that I did it!"

"I understand," Lizzie half groaned, "but you were not to blame, my
child. I am the one. It's just me, child--just me and no one else. I
spoiled his life and yours. I know it--I know it. You ought to hate me,
as all the rest do, and not come here like this. Don't you know that if
people knew you were here they would--would--"

"Hush!" Tilly said, pressing Lizzie's hands to her breast and holding
them there. "I love you--I love you even more--yes, more than I do my
own mother. You are my mother. Death has parted John and me, but nothing
should part me from you. Some day you must let me stay with you--live
with you, care for you, work for you. Oh, Mrs. Trott, I want to be to
you what John would have been had he lived to see you so lonely and
unhappy as you are now."

As she stared Lizzie Trott seemed fairly to wilt in the rays of the new
sun that was blazing over her. "Why, child, darling child," she
sobbingly cried out, "you could never live with me. It is out of all
reason. Even this visit is imprudent. You must go home--you must go back
to your mother. Surely you know that this very roof--"

"I don't care for that," Tilly broke in. "I can't live with my people--
I don't want to live anywhere but with you. You need me--yes, that is
the truth; you need me, and I need you. I feel rested and soothed here,
as if God Himself were with me. I don't feel so anywhere else."

They sat down on the old sofa, side by side. They wept and clung
together. After a while Tilly raised her head. "I've always wanted to
see John's room. May I?" she asked. "Would you mind? It is silly,
perhaps, but I want to see it. He told me how he used to study and work
there at night."

Lizzie nodded and rose. It was dark now and she lighted a lamp. At the
foot of the stairs, however, she stopped abruptly.

"Oh, I forgot," she cried. "You ought not to look at it. It is upset,
unclean; it was never well attended to even while he was here. It will
make you hate me."

"No, no; let me see it, please," Tilly pleaded, taking the lamp into her
own hand. "I can go alone--in fact, in fact, I'd like to be alone there
for a little while, Mrs. Trott, if you wouldn't mind."

Lizzie hesitated a moment and then gave in. "It is the last door on the
left," she said. "I'm sorry it is in such a bad condition."

"Very well, I'll find it," Tilly answered, and, leaving Lizzie below,
she went up the stairs.

CHAPTER XLIII

She wa