“It was very warm in the omnibus, I suppose, for you are looking better already.”

“I am better; but, Katherine, your uncle is curiously changed.  It is not so much that he looks ill, but by comparison so alarmingly amiable.”

“Well, he is less appalling than he was, and I have grown wonderfully accustomed to him.  But for the monotony, it is not so bad as I expected, and it will be better now, as Mr. Newton is to give me the weekly money.  I think my uncle is trying to live.”

“Poor man! he has little to live for,” said Mrs. Liddell.

“He wishes to outlive some other old man, because then he will get a good deal of money, according to some curious system—­called a ‘Tontine.’”

“Is it possible?  The ruling passion, then, in his instance is strong against death.”

“What a poverty-stricken life his has been, after all!” exclaimed Katherine.  “Did Ada tell you how vexed he was at her visit?”

“She was greatly offended, but I should like your version of it.”

Katherine told her, and repeated Mr. Newton’s inquiry about Mrs. Fred Liddell’s family name.

“Mr. Newton is very kind.  He is very formal and precise, and very guarded in all he says, yet I feel that he likes me—­us—­and would like my uncle to do something for us.”

“I never hoped he would do as much as he has.  If he would remember those poor little boys in his will it would be a great help.  You and I could always manage together, Katie.”

“I wish that we were together by our own selves once more,” returned Kate, nestling up to her mother on the big old-fashioned sofa, and resting her head on her shoulder.

“I wish to God we were!  I miss you so awfully, my darling!”

There was a short silence while the two clung lovingly together.  Then Katherine said, in a low tone, “Mr. Newton evidently thinks he—­my uncle—­has made a very unjust will, and fears he will never change it.”

“Most probably he will not; but he ought not to cut off his natural heirs.”

“Would Cecil and Charlie be his natural heirs?”

“I suppose so, and something would come to you too; but I do not understand these matters.  It is dreadful how mean and mercenary this terrible need for money makes one.”

“You want it very much, mother?  There is trouble in your voice; tell me what it is.”

“There is no special pressure, dear, just now; but unless I am more successful with my pen I greatly fear I shall get into debt before I can liberate myself from that house.  Yet if I do, what will become of Ada and the boys?” She paused to cough.

Katherine was silent; the tone of her mother’s voice told more than her words.  “But,” resumed Mrs. Liddell, “all is not black.  The Dalston Weekly has taken my short story, and given me ten pounds for it.  However, you must take the bad with the good; my poor three-decker has come back on my hands.”