ature upon which I can exert myself. I think some pieces in this
would be suitable;" and Mrs. Dabb offered Miriam a volume of Mrs.
Hemans' works.

Miriam took it, and bade her aunt good-bye.

She was now face to face with a great trouble, and she had to encounter
it alone, and with no weapons and with no armour save those which
Nature provides. She was not specially an exile from civilisation;
churches and philosophers had striven and demonstrated for thousands of
years, and yet she was no better protected than if Socrates, Epictetus,
and all ecclesiastical establishments from the time of Moses had never
existed.

She did not lecture her brother, for she had no materials for a sermon.
She called him a fool when she came home; and having said this, she had
nothing more to say, except to ask him bitterly what he meant to do.
What could he do?--a poor, helpless, weak creature, half a stranger in
London; and without expostulating with her for her roughness with him,
he sat still and cried. It was useless to think of obtaining a
situation like the one he had lost. He could prove no experience, he
dared not refer to his uncle, and consequently there was nothing before
him but a return to clockmaking, or rather clock repairing. Here
again, however, he was foiled, for his apprenticeship was barely
concluded, and he had never taken to the business with sufficient
seriousness to become proficient. After one or two inquiries,
therefore, he found that in this department also he was useless.

The affection of Miriam for her brother, never very strong, was not
increased by his ill-luck. She began, in fact, to dislike him because
he was unfortunate. She imagined that her dislike was due to his
faults, and every now and then she abused him for them; but his faults
would have been forgotten if he had been prosperous. She hated misery,
and not only misery in the abstract, but miserable weak creatures. She
was ready enough, as we have seen, to right a wrong, especially if the
wrong was championed by those whom she despised; but for simple
infirmity, at least in human beings, she had no more mercy than the
wild animals which destroy any one of their tribe whom they find
disabled. There was more than a chance, too, that Andrew would
interfere with her own happiness. If he could not get anything to do,
they must leave London, for living on the allowance from Cowfold was
impossible. Reproof, when it is mixed with personal hos