?
That is what Lord Luxmore wants. Did he not say he would ruin
me?--Worse than this--he is ruining my good name. If you had heard
those poor people whom I sent away tonight! What must they, who will
have short work these two months, and after that machinery-work, which
they fancy is taking the very bread out of their mouths--what must they
think of the master?"

He spoke--as we rarely heard John speak: as worldly cares and worldly
injustice cause even the best of men to speak sometimes.

"Poor people!" he added, "how can I blame them? I was actually dumb
before them to-night, when they said I must take the cost of what I
do--they must have bread for their children. But so must I for mine.
Lord Luxmore is the cause of all."

Here I heard--or fancied I heard--out of the black shadow behind the
loom, a heavy sigh. John and Ursula were too anxious to notice it.

"Could anything be done?" she asked. "Just to keep things going till
your steam-engine is ready? Will it cost much?"

"More than I like to think of. But it must be;--nothing
venture--nothing have. You and the children are secure anyhow, that's
one comfort. But oh, my poor people at Enderley!"

Again Ursula asked if nothing could be done.

"Yes--I did think of one plan--but--"

"John, I know what you thought of."

She laid her hand on his arm, and looked straight up at him--eye to
eye. Often, it seemed that from long habit they could read one
another's minds in this way, clearly as a book. At last John said:

"Would it be too hard a sacrifice, love?"

"How can you talk so! We could do it easily, by living in a plainer
way; by giving up one or two trifles. Only outside things, you know.
Why need we care for outside things?"

"Why, indeed?" he said, in a low, fond tone.

So I easily found out how they meant to settle the difficulty; namely,
by setting aside a portion of the annual income which John, in his
almost morbid anxiety lest his family should take harm by any possible
non-success in his business, had settled upon his wife. Three months of
little renunciations--three months of the old narrow way of living, as
at Norton Bury--and the poor people at Enderley might have full wages,
whether or no there was full work. Then in our quiet valley there
would be no want, no murmurings, and, above all, no blaming of the
master.

They decided it all--in fewer words than I have taken to write it--it
was so easy to decide when both were of