"My dear," she said, returning the cup | aim there should be no place for you and after swallowing a third of its contents yours to hide their heads in? Looking with great effort, but with no complaint, down into her heart, Mildie could not find "my dear, you know that in the best of the deep sympathy for her father's persistimes Mary Anne never liked the dining- tent misery she knew ought to be there. room bell to be rung in the afternoons, and since I can do so little for any one, I don't wish to be a burden. I was reading over Emmie's letters to pass the time, and hoping that it was not much after five o'clock, and that I need not begin to wonder yet why your father and Harry did not come

home."

"I'm sure," said Mildie vindictively, "they come quite soon enough for any good or use their society is to us. No, I don't mean to complain of Harry, though he has chosen to be glum ever since Christabel Moore left the house; I was thinking of you, mother dear. I am sure you hear grumbling enough of an evening after papa comes in; I can't understand why you want to begin sooner."

"Oh, Mildie dear, your father!"

Yes, I know he is my father, but that does not make it any better for you," persisted Mildie. "I do think when he has been out all day he might have the sense not to talk you to death about miserable things when he comes back at night. Why should he scold you if things are going wrong at the office? How can you help it?"

Mrs. West smiled at the word scold. "I almost wish it was me instead of himself he scolded," she said sadly; "if you knew, dear, how he is always blaming himself because he has not been able to do well for us you would be more sorry for him. It is his love for us that makes him miserable, and that has perhaps pushed him on to some of the mistakes he repents so bitterly now, dear; we cannot be too patient with him.”

"I believe I am a bad-tempered, hard creature," she said at last, "and there is no good in my talking to you, mamma, for I can't say anything you will like to hear. I will go and make tea for the boys, and bring you a cup to make up for the cold chocolate, if papa will only stay away long enough to give you time to drink it in peace.'

"There's Harry!" exclaimed Mrs. West, who had turned to the window again during Mildie's fit of silence, "coming home again without his father."

"But he looks quite jolly," said Mildie, "he is nodding to us while he scrapes his feet. I'll run and let him in."

Though not given to bestow much attention on what went on around her, Mildred had received a vague impression during the last few weeks that some fresh cause of anxiety had arisen connected with her father which lay at the bottom of her mother's new fidget, as she called it, to have him safe at home before dark. The impression was deepened now by the first look exchanged between her mother and Harry when he entered the room. She read in it a whole volume of secret fears that perhaps had never found words on either side, and her curiosity and anxiety were fully aroused at last.

"All right, mother," Harry said cheerfully, in spite of that first involuntary look. "He'll follow me in twenty minutes, or half an hour at latest. This time it's only that Cummins sent for him into his private room about a letter that he had neglected to post. Yes," in a lower tone, "I could not help it; it would not have done for me to wait about for him while the other fellows were watching. He's sure to come straight home to-night after the pulling up he'll have got from Cummins."

"You are patient," cried Mildie, with a great impatient sob, and then she stood silent, while rebellious thoughts, such as come to young eager minds when the sad side of life is too persistently thrust upon "Poor papa!" said Mrs. West, sighingthem by their elders, swelled within her." Well, you'll come back after you have Patient, indeed! but why should the whole had your tea in the schoolroom; your world be clothed in sackcloth for them father'll be very low to-night, I'm afraid, just because their father had failed to keep but you'll come back and stay for the rest the place in the world he had been born of the evening with me. to? Could he not make one moan for it and have done, and let them all sink contentedly to some new sphere and wash their hands once for all of old pretensions and traditions that Mildie for her part despised? Was it, after all, such a great thing to be wealthy, that failing in that

"All right," said Harry again, with just a shade of disappointment crossing his face.

"Make a good meal first, my boy. It is pleasanter for you there than here, I know," said Mrs. West, sighing, that is why I like you to take your meals

"and

faction as they note the imbecile expression of face with which he is choosing the card he is about to throw down.

"Can you remember," said Harry, with something like a sob in his voice, "the old times when we were small, and he used to tell us stories from these pictures after dinner, sitting on his knee by turns? Emmie used always to be frightened, and cover her eyes, when we came to this one."

"I recollect the dessert, and mamma's pretty evening dresses, and the ornaments she let me play with, but I was too young then for the stories," answered Mildie.

"But you have read this book; you can guess what I want to tell you; you know why little Nell had to take her grandfather away from Mrs. Jallop's.'

"Because he gambled, and she was afraid he might be tempted to take Mrs. Jallop's money. So that is what you're afraid of? I did not know it was so bad as that," she added, turning again towards the picture, and looking with disgust at the cunning foolish face of the poor old man. "I don't wonder that Emmie hated this picture."

Harry took the book from her hastily and thrust it back into its place.

when he's taken to begging, poor father! he who used to be so proud; but they are not likely to go on supplying him long. Cheques and notes pass through his hands sometimes at the office, and Cummins has such a spite against him, and is so tired out with his meddling and mistakes, that I believe he'd rather catch him out once in a fault of that kind, and make a show of magnanimity to a fallen man by merely dismissing him, than put up with him in the office much longer."

"And Mr. Cummins sent for father to-day, as you were leaving. Oh, Harry! and you said all right when you went in to mamma."

"It's more likely than not to be one of the every-day rowings, and one must keep up one's spirits as long as one can."

Mildie put her hand on Harry's shoulder and said, half under her breath, "You've got to bear the anxiety all by yourself; it's very good of you."

"Nonsense," cried Harry; but a quiver passed over his face, and he did not shake off Mildie's hand. They stood a moment together in silence, and then Mildie asked, in a subdued, awe-struck voice,

"You don't think father ever will do that — about the cheques?"

"I don't hate it," he said slowly, after a minute's pause. "I think pretty often of "Not if he quite knows what he is it, and of the story as father used to tell it doing; but when people get muddled by to Emmie and me. It comes back to me thinking night and day just of that one as he told it, and somehow seems to ex-thing-winning money-and when tempplain things. Poor father, he had not any tation is constantly put in their way on notion then of what he would come to. It purpose But no; what I am really was all plain sailing with him then. He afraid of is appearances turning against thought he'd come into life at the right end him accidentally, and Cummins, who has, at the top of the tree-and that it was I know, been looking out for a chance of his chief business to keep there, and to getting rid of him, taking advantage of this put us there. He's never been able to feel habit to put him in the wrong." right anywhere else; and since he came down, he's always been looking, first in one way and then in another, for the stroke of good luck that was to put him back again, till at last Well," said Harry, putting his finger to his forehead, "I suppose one can't go on expecting impossibilities and being disappointed every day of one's life without its telling on one's brain in the end, and when it comes to that, one's not responsible. Making money is a sort of mania with him now, since he took to haunting places of an evening where he can bet and play for money."

"Where does he get the money to play with?"

"Ah, that's it!" said Harry. "I think he has borrowed a good deal lately from Uncle Rivers, and other old acquaintances who used to pity and respect him till now,

"I almost wish it would come," said Mildie, "the worst that has to come, and that it was well over. If we go with a great crash quite down to the ground, we shall get up again like Antæus, you know." No, I don't," said Harry; heard of the beggar. Let him slide; what has he to do with us?"

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66 never

"Ah, well!" said Mildie; "what I mean is that I should like to make a fresh start, washing our hands of this big, gloomy house, and the pictures of rich old Aldermen Wests on the walls, and the pretence at late dinners, and the calling ourselves ladies and gentlemen. I should like to begin again at the bottom and see what we could do. We would all work. Yes, you may laugh at me, but I could, Harry, I could black grates, and scrub and drudge, if I'm fit for nothing else, for I have been

doing it lately, though nobody has known anything about it."

"I have!" answered Harry, putting his arm round Mildie's waist, and taking away her breath by actually kissing her on the forehead. "You're a brave girl, MildieI'll say that for you though you are a bit of a pedant; and I've noticed, if no one else has, how pluckily you've put your shoulder to the wheel lately. You'll show yourself a regular brick, I'll answer for that, when the worst comes."

"I wish it were come, then," said Mildie, glowing under this immense praise; "with you to help me, Harry, I should not mind anything."

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"But we don't know what the worst will be yet," groaned Harry. You're a brick, as I observed before” (stooping down and kissing her again). "You and I can stand up against whatever happens; but there's | the others to think for my mother, and Emmie, and the poor old governor. I don't know how he'd bear another fall, or where it would take him to. There, you'd better pour out the tea. Is not that the kitchen clock striking seven? I'll get my tea, and if he has not turned up by that time, I'll stroll out again to see if I can hear anything of him at any of his usual places. It will be better than sitting still, anyhow."

The meal was over before any interruption came, and Mildie followed Harry out into the hall for the sake of hovering about bim while he took his hat, and looked into the drawing-room to say a few cheering words to his mother before he left the house.

"You might bring Christabel Moore down to sit with mother while I'm away," be suggested wistfully, when he had reached the hall door. While Mildie was searching her mind for some inoffensive way of insinuating that his panacea of comfort did not equally suit their mother, a new direction was given to her thoughts by some sounds outside the house that seemed to fill her ears and arrest the beating of her pulses, as no sound, no earpiercing shriek or wail of woe had ever done before: yet they were the merest every-day sounds, footsteps, approaching and pausing before the house, and rapid wheels stopping suddenly at their door.

"Dr. Urquhart coming back," observed Harry, who had heard, and strangely enough turned pale at these common occurrences, too.

"It's not Dr. Urquhart," said Mildie, in a whisper.

"There!" cried Harry, pushing her towards the dining-room door. "Go in there to mother and keep her from looking out of the window, whatever you do, while I see what it is. Do go at once."

But the precaution was a second too late. Mrs. West had resumed her watch at the window the instant Harry left her; and while he was speaking the diningroom door opened, and she came out with a marble face, and an expression in her eyes that Mildie never forgot.

"Open the door, Harry dear," she said. "It's-it's your father; they are bringing him home-ill-I think. Quick, dearslet me pass, I'll go myself; he must not be kept waiting — I must get to him quick."

Mildie, in wild terror at her looks, threw her arms about her to keep her back; and Harry went to the door and opened it wide. At the bottom of the steps there was a little procession, two or three men carrying a heavy something which seemed lately to have been lifted out of a cab that was drawn up near. At the top stood Mr. Cummins, white and agitated, and in a hurry to speak. He seized Harry's arm to keep him from running down the steps, and forced him back into the house.

66

Keep your mother and sister out of the way, for heaven's sake," he whispered. "Take them somewhere before that comes into the house. I hurried on here to prepare to explain to save you the first shock, if I could. Get your mother out of the way, at least."

"What is it?" asked Harry hoarsely.

"A fit. There may be life left; we don't know. I sent for a doctor and he is there, with the-with your father, bring. ing him in. It all happened in a minute. He had got up to leave the room, and just as he reached the door, he fell down as if he had been shot. I had been speaking to him quite quietly."

"Yes, I daresay," said Harry, between his teeth. "Let go my arm, if you please." Then, as Mr. Cummins tightened, rather than loosened, his grasp, horrified at the deep unspoken condemnation which those stern young eyes burned down into his very soul, Harry threw him off, sending him staggering forward into the hall, and rushed down the steps to meet the slowly mounting procession, - four men carrying a limp, recumbent figure between them.

"You had better go back; you had better not come near just yet," a kind professional voice said in his ear.

But Harry did not heed the words; he | whose grief she would long to alleviate. only saw a poor, worn, iron-grey head and When at last Mrs. West had been pera white face swaying wretchedly back- suaded to go to bed, Mildie, Harry, and wards and forwards, and he pushed the Dr. Urquhart met in a sad little conclave figure nearest it away, and took it on his in the back sitting-room to consult what Own shoulder. The white forehead should be done. touched his cheek as he bent down, and the half-closed eyes seemed to look cloudily, but with a strange, still, dignified calmness into his. He had never felt a chill like the chill of that touch, never seen that film in any eyes before, but he knew by instinct what it meant, and, strange to say, the feeling that first rushed into his mind was not grief so much as a sad, solemn triumph. Out of the reach of human scorn at least, snatched away from the trouble that was too strong for him.