of him what he was incapable of giving, or unwilling to show.

Next morning Mehetabel was prompt to prepare breakfast for her
husband. The day was fine, but the light streaming in through the
window served to show how jaded she was with long watching, with
constant attention, and with harrowing care.

Always punctilious to be neat, she had smoothed her hair, tidied
her dress, and washed the tears from her face, but she could not
give brightness to the dulled eye or bloom to the worn cheek.

For a while the child was quiet, stupefied with weariness and long
crying. By the early light Mehetabel had studied the little face,
hungering after tokens of recovering powers, glad that the drawn
features were relaxed temporarily.

"Where are you going to-day, Bideabout?" she asked, timidly,
expecting a rebuff.

"Why do you ask?' was his churlish answer.

"Because--oh! if I might have a doctor for baby!"

"A doctor!" he retorted. "Are we princes and princesses, that we
can afford that? There's no doctor nigher than Hazelmere, and I
ain't goin' there. I suppose cos you wos given the name of a
Duchess of Edom, you've got these expensive ideas in your head.
Wot's the good of doctors to babies? Babies can't say what ails
them."

"If--if--" began Mehetabel, kindly, "if I might have a doctor, and
pay for it out of that fifteen pound that father let me have."

"That fifteen pound ain't no longer yours. And this be fine game,
throwin' money away on doctors when we're on the brink of ruin.
Don't you know as how the bank has failed, and all my money gone?
The fifteen pound is gone with the rest."

"If you had but allowed me to keep it, it would not have been lost
now," said Mehetabel.

"I ain't goin' to have no doctors here," said Bideabout, positively,
"but I'll tell you what I'll do, and that's about as much as can be
expected in reason. I'm goin' to Gorlmyn to fetch old Clutch; and
I'll see a surgeon there and tell him whatever you like--and get
a mixture for the child. But I won't pay more than half-a-crown,
and that's wasted. I don't believe in doctors and their paint and
water, as they gives us."

Jonas departed, and then the tired and anxious mother again turned
to her child. The face was white spotted with crimson, the closed
lids blue.

There was no certainty when Bideabout would return, but assuredly
not before evening, as he walked to Godalming, and if he rode home
on the lame horse, the pace would be slower than