“Does your head ache?”

“No; at least not more than usual.  I always have a weight there; I believe it is merely ideas.  I asked a very eminent young man who lives not far from us—­he occupies a high position in the hospital—­a dresser, I think, they call him; and he said it was due to overstrung—­dear me, what was it!  I remember putting it down, it seemed so exactly to coincide with my own views.”

Mrs. Dabb looked in her pocket-book.

“Overstrung cerebration, that was it; overstrung cerebration.”

“What were you going to say about Miriam?”

“A little proposal.  My husband wants a clerk.  Why not let Andrew take the place, and Miriam be his housekeeper?  We have no room for them, but apartments are to be procured at a low rate.”

This was in reality Miriam’s scheme.  She had heard of the vacancy in Mr. Dabb’s establishment, and had implored her aunt to use her influence with Giacomo to gain his assent to Andrew’s removal.  Mrs. Dabb was not an unkind woman; she really thought she liked Miriam, and she consented.  She had even gone so far as to encourage her in the belief that she “vegetated,” and the word opened up to her a new world.  “Vegetate”—­it stuck to her, and became a motive power.  Great is the power of a thought, but greater still is the power of a phrase, and it may be questioned whether phrase is not more directly responsible than thought for our religion, our politics, our philosophy, our love, our hatred, our hopes and fears.

“I do not think,” said Giacomo, “they could live on a clerk’s salary.  Andrew would not be worth much as a beginner.”

“It is astonishing, my dear Giacomo, upon how little people can live, if their wants are simple, like my own, for example; and then Andrew would have the opportunity of acquiring animal food at a cheap rate.”

“I do not like the thought of parting with the children, and I fear the dangers of London, especially for a girl like Miriam.”

“I would take them, Giacomo, under my wing.  Besides, as a dear friend once observed to me, evil has no power over the pure soul.  I feel it myself; it cannot come near me; it dissolves, it departs.  What is the Borough to me with all its snares?  I am in a different world.”

Giacomo for some time refused; but Miriam was alternately so unpleasant and so coaxing, that at last he consented.  Poor Andrew had really no will of his own in the affair.  He was a gentle, docile creature whom clockmaking suited, but he was pleased at the thought of the change, and who could tell? he might rise to a position at his uncle’s far beyond anything which he could attain in Cowfold.