Katherine uttered a low exclamation.  “I did hope they would have taken it! and what miserable pay for that bright, pretty story!  Mother, I cannot believe that the novel will fail. Do, do try Santley & Son!  I have always heard they were such nice people.  Try—­promise me you will.”

“Dear Katie, I will do whatever you ask me; but—­but I confess I feel as if Hope, who has always befriended me, had turned her back at last.  I am so dreadfully tired!  I feel as if I was never to rest.  Oh for a couple of years of peace before I go hence, and a certainty that you would not want!”

“Do not fear for me,” cried Katherine, pressing her mother to her and covering her pale cheeks with kisses.  “For myself I fear nothing, but for you, I greatly fear you are unwell; you breathe shortly; your hands are feverish.  Do not let hope go.  A few weeks and my uncle will be stronger, or he may be invigorated by feeling he has killed out the other old man, and then I will go back to you and help you, whatever happens.  I won’t stay here to act compound interest.  My own darling mother, keep up your heart.”

“I am ashamed of myself,” said Mrs. Liddell, in an unsteady voice.  “I ought not to have grieved your young heart with my depression, for I have been depressed.”

“Why not?  What is the good of youth and strength if it is not to uphold those who have already had more than their share of life’s burdens?”

“I assure you this outpouring has relieved me greatly; I shall return like a giant refreshed,” said Mrs. Liddell, rallying gallantly; “and you may depend on my trying the fortune of my poor novel once more, with Santley & Son.  Now tell me how your domestic management prospers.”

A long confidential discussion ensued, and at last Mrs. Liddell was obliged to leave.

Katherine went to tell her uncle she was going to set her mother on her way, and to see his cup of beef tea served to him.  His remark almost startled her.  “Very well,” he said.  “Come back soon.”

This interview agitated Katherine more than Mrs. Liddell knew.  Her worn look, her cough, her unwonted depression, thrilled her daughter’s warm heart with a passion of tender longing to be with her, to help her, to give her the rest she so sorely needed; and in the solitude of her large dreary room she sobbed herself to sleep, her lips still quivering with the loving epithets she had murmured to herself.

CHAPTER VIII.

“THE LONG TASK IS DONE.”

The facility with which human nature assimilates new conditions is among its most remarkable attributes.  A week had scarcely elapsed since John Liddell’s sudden indisposition and subsidence into an invalid condition, yet it seemed to Katherine that he had been breakfasting in bed for ages, and might continue to do so for another cycle without change.  Her inexperience took no warning from the rapidly developing signs of decadence and failing force which Mr. Newton perceived; and, on the whole, she found her task of housekeeper and caretaker less ungrateful since weakness had subdued her uncle, and the friendly lawyer had been appointed paymaster.