She saw clearly enough the hopelessness of their position; probably with the intensity of youth she exaggerated it, which was scarcely necessary, as a small rut is apt to widen into a bottomless pit if it crosses the path of those who are living up to the utmost verge of a narrow income.  As she reviewed the endless instances of her mother’s self-abnegation which memory supplied—­her cheerful industry, her brave struggle to live like a gentlewoman on a pittance, her tender thought for the welfare and happiness of her children—­she felt she could walk through a burning fiery furnace if by so doing she could earn ease and repose for her mother’s weary spirit.

“She is looking ill and worn,” thought Katherine, “and years older.  She has never been the same since that attack of bronchitis last year.  Ada and the boys are too much for her, though they are dear little fellows; but they are costly.  If Ada would even give us twenty pounds a year more it would be a great help.”

The project Katherine had evolved through the night-watches was to visit her uncle and ask him, face to face, for help!  It is, she argued, harder to say “no” than to write it; even if she failed she should know her fate at once, and not have to endure the agony of waiting for a letter.  Nor, were she refused, need her mother ever know now she had humiliated herself in the dust.

How her young heart sank within her at the thought of being harshly, contemptuously rejected!  It was a positive painful physical sense of faintness that made her limbs tremble as she pressed on faster than she was aware.  “But I will do it—­I will!  If I succeed no humiliation will be too great,” she said to herself.  “I will speak with all my soul!  When I begin, this horrible feeling that my tongue is dry and speechless will go away.  I must find out where this awful old man is; what is his street and number.  I dared not ask mother.  First I will try the publisher; as the ‘servants’ hall’ publications have rejected it, I shall offer Darrell’s Doom to a first-rate house.  Why not try Channing & Wyndham?  They cannot say worse than ‘no,’ and I shall no doubt see a Directory there.”  Thus communing with herself, she took an omnibus down Park Lane and walked thence to the well-known temple of the Muses in Piccadilly.

Arrived there, a civil clerk took her card—­which was her mother’s—­and soon returning, asked if she had an appointment.  “No, I have not, but pray ask Mr. Channing or Mr. Wyndham to see me; I will not stay more than a few minutes.”  The young man smiled slightly; he was accustomed to such assurances.  Almost as Katherine spoke, a stout “country gentleman” looking person came into the warehouse, slightly raising his hat as he passed her.  A sudden inspiration prompted her to say, “Pray excuse me, but are you Mr. Wyndham?”

“I am.”

“Then do let me speak to you for five minutes.”

“With pleasure,” said the great publisher, graciously, and ushered her into a sort of literary loose box or small enclosure in the remote back-ground.