She soon found ample occupation.  Not a day passed without a battle over pennies and half-pennies.  Liddell gave her each morning a small sum wherewith to go to market; he expected her to return straight to him and account rigidly for every farthing she had laid out, to enter all in a book which he kept, and to give him the exact change.  These early expeditions into the fresh air among the busy, friendly shopkeepers soon came to be the best bit of Katherine’s day, and most useful in keeping up the healthy tone of her mind.  Then came a spell of reading from the Times and other papers.  Every word connected with the funds and money matters generally, even such morsels of politics as effected the pulse of finance, was eagerly listened to; of other topics Mr. Liddell did not care to hear.  A few letters to solicitor or stock-broker, some entries in a general account-book, and the forenoon was gone.  Friends, interests, regard for life in any of its various aspects, all were nonexistent for Liddell.  Money was his only thought, his sole aspiration—­to accumulate, for no object.  This miserliness had grown upon him since he had lost both wife and son.  Fortunately for Katherine, his ideas of expenditure had been fixed by the comparatively liberal standard of his late cook.  When, therefore, he found he had greater comfort at slightly less cost he was satisfied.

But his satisfaction did not prompt him to express it.  His nearest approach to approval was not finding fault.

In vain Katherine endeavored to interest him in some of the subjects treated of in the papers.  He was deaf to every topic that did not bear on his self-interest.

“There is a curious account here of the state of labor in Manchester and Birmingham; shall I read it to you?” asked Katherine, one morning, after she had toiled through the share list and city article.  She had been about a fortnight installed in her uncle’s house.

“No!” he returned; “what is labor to me?  We have each our own work to do.”

“But is there nothing else you would care to hear, uncle?” She had grown more accustomed to him, and he to her; in spite of herself, she was anxious to cheer his dull days—­to awaken something of human feeling in the old automaton.

“Nothing!  Why should I care for what does not concern me?  You only care for what touches yourself; but because you are young, and your blood runs quick, many things touch you.”

“Did you ever care for anything except—­except—­” Katherine pulled herself up.  The words “your money” were on her lips.

“I cannot remember, and I do not wish to look back.  I suppose, now, you would like to be driving about in a fine carriage, with a bonnet and feathers on your head.  I suppose you are wishing me dead, and yourself free to run away from your daily tasks in this quiet house, to listen to the lying tongue of some soft-spoken scoundrel, as foolish women will; but the longer I live the better for you, till your mother’s debt is paid, or my executors will give her a short shrift and scant time.”