’For mercy’s sake don’t speak too loud, and wake them children.  Bertie’s had the earache; he’s been crying all day.  What with him and Jane we’ve had a blessing, I can tell you.  Can I put these supper things away, Emma?’

‘I’ll do it,’ was the other’s reply.  ’Won’t you have a bit more, Kate?’

’I’ve got no mind for eating.  Well, you may cut a slice and put it on the mantelpiece.  I’ll go and sit with Jane.’

Richard sat and looked about the room absently.  The circumstances of his own family had never fallen below the point at which it is possible to have regard for decency; the growing up of himself and of his brothers and sister had brought additional resources to meet extended needs, and the Mutimer characteristics had formed a safeguard against improvidence.  He was never quite at his ease in this poverty-cumbered room, which he seldom visited.

‘You ought to have a fire,’ he said.

‘There’s one in the other room,’ replied Kate.  ’One has to serve us.’

‘But you can’t cook there.’

’Cook?  We can boil a potato, and that’s about all the cooking we can do now-a-days.’

She moved to the door as she spoke, and, before leaving the room, took advantage of Richard’s back being turned to make certain exhortatory signs to her sister.  Emma averted her head.

Kate closed the door behind her.  Emma, having removed the eatables to the cupboard, came near to Richard and placed her arm gently upon his shoulders.  He looked at her kindly.

‘Kate’s been so put about with Bertie,’ she said, in a tone of excuse.  ‘And she was up nearly all last night.’

‘She never takes things like you do,’ Richard remarked.

’She’s got more to bear.  There’s the children always making her anxious.  She took Alf to the hospital this afternoon, and the doctor says he must have—­I forget the name, somebody’s food.  But it’s two-and-ninepence for ever such a little tin.  They don’t think as his teeth ‘ll ever come.’

‘Oh, I daresay they will,’ said Richard encouragingly.

He had put his arm about her.  Emma knelt down by him, and rested her head against his shoulder.

‘I’m tired,’ she whispered.  ’I’ve had to go twice to the Minories to-day.  I’m so afraid I shan’t be able to hold my eyes open with Jane, and Kate’s tireder still.’

She did not speak as if seeking for sympathy it was only the natural utterance of her thoughts in a moment of restful confidence.  Uttermost weariness was a condition too familiar to the girl to be spoken of in any but a patient, matter-of-fact tone.  But it was priceless soothing to let her forehead repose against the heart whose love was the one and sufficient blessing of her life.  Her brown hair was very soft and fine; a lover of another kind would have pressed his lips upon it.  Richard was thinking of matters more practical.  At another time his indignation—­in such a case right good and manful—­would have boiled over at the thought of these poor women crushed in slavery to feed the world’s dastard selfishness; this evening his mood was more complaisant, and he smiled as one at ease.