get out of his power, and, if you don’t, five years is not all one’s life—­at least, not if people have a life.  At the worst, he can only take all the money.  And then, when you are great and rich and famous, and more beautiful than ever, and when the people turn their heads as you come into the room, like we used to at school when the missionary came to lecture, I know that you will think of me (because you won’t forget me as some sisters do), and of how, years and years before, so long ago that the time looks quite small when you think of it, I told you that it would be so just before I died.”

Here the girl, who had been speaking with a curious air of certainty and with a gravity and deliberation extraordinary for one so young, suddenly broke off to cough.  Her sister threw herself on her knees beside her, and, clasping her in her arms, implored her in broken accents not to talk of dying.  Jeannie drew Augusta’s golden head down on her breast and stroked it.

“Very well, Gussie, I won’t say any more about it,” she said; “but it is no good hiding the truth, dear.  I am tired of fighting against it; it is no good—­none at all.  Anyhow we have loved each other very much, dear; and perhaps—­somewhere else—­we may again.”—­And the brave little heart again broke down, and, overcome by the prescience of approaching separation, they both sobbed bitterly there upon the sofa.  Presently came a knock at the door, and Augusta sprang up and turned to hide her tears.  It was the maid-of-all-work bringing the tea; and, as she came blundering in, a sense of the irony of things forced itself into Augusta’s soul.  Here they were plunged into the most terrible sorrow, weeping at the inevitable approach of that chill end, and still appearances must be kept up, even before a maid-of-all-work.  Society, even when represented by a maid-of-all-work, cannot do away with the intrusion of domestic griefs, or any other griefs, and in our hearts we know it and act up to it.  Far gone, indeed, must we be in mental or physical agony before we abandon the attempt to keep up appearances.

Augusta drank a little tea and ate a very small bit of bread-and-butter.  As in the case of Mr. Meeson, the events of the day had not tended to increase her appetite.  Jeannie drank a little milk but ate nothing.  When this form had been gone through, and the maid-of-all-work had once more made her appearance and cleared the table, Jeannie spoke again.

“Gus,” she said, “I want you to put me to bed and then come and read to me out of ’Jemima’s Vow’—­where poor Jemima dies, you know.  It is the most beautiful thing in the book, and I want to hear it again.”