e meanwhile passing their Christmas after
their fashion and in a manner by no means too cheerful.

Out of the hundred pounds a year, which was about the amount of her
income, the Widow Osborne had been in the habit of giving up nearly
three-fourths to her father and mother, for the expenses of herself and
her little boy. With #120 more, supplied by Jos, this family of four
people, attended by a single Irish servant who also did for Clapp and
his wife, might manage to live in decent comfort through the year, and
hold up their heads yet, and be able to give a friend a dish of tea
still, after the storms and disappointments of their early life. Sedley
still maintained his ascendency over the family of Mr. Clapp, his
ex-clerk. Clapp remembered the time when, sitting on the edge of the
chair, he tossed off a bumper to the health of "Mrs. S--, Miss Emmy,
and Mr. Joseph in India," at the merchant's rich table in Russell
Square. Time magnified the splendour of those recollections in the
honest clerk's bosom. Whenever he came up from the kitchen-parlour to
the drawing-room and partook of tea or gin-and-water with Mr. Sedley,
he would say, "This was not what you was accustomed to once, sir," and
as gravely and reverentially drink the health of the ladies as he had
done in the days of their utmost prosperity. He thought Miss 'Melia's
playing the divinest music ever performed, and her the finest lady. He
never would sit down before Sedley at the club even, nor would he have
that gentleman's character abused by any member of the society. He had
seen the first men in London shaking hands with Mr. S--; he said, "He'd
known him in times when Rothschild might be seen on 'Change with him
any day, and he owed him personally everythink."

Clapp, with the best of characters and handwritings, had been able very
soon after his master's disaster to find other employment for himself.
"Such a little fish as me can swim in any bucket," he used to remark,
and a member of the house from which old Sedley had seceded was very
glad to make use of Mr. Clapp's services and to reward them with a
comfortable salary. In fine, all Sedley's wealthy friends had dropped
off one by one, and this poor ex-dependent still remained faithfully
attached to him.

Out of the small residue of her income which Amelia kept back for
herself, the widow had need of all the thrift and care possible in
order to enable her to keep her darling boy dressed in such a mann