keeping her voice as steady as she could. As a matter of fact, however,
the scene itself was as powerful as it was pathetic, and quite sufficient
to account for any unseemly exhibitions of feeling on the part of the
reader. However, she struggled through it till the last sentence was
reached. It ran thus:--"And so Jemima stretched out her hand to him and
said 'Good-bye.' And presently, knowing that she had now kept her
promise, and being happy because she had done so, she went to sleep."

"Ah!" murmured the blue-eyed child who listened. "I wish that I was as
good as Jemima. But though I have no vow to keep I can say 'Good-bye,'
and I can go to sleep."

Augusta made no answer, and presently Jeannie dozed off. Her sister
looked at her with eager affection. "She is giving up," she said to
herself, "and, if she gives up, she will die. I know it, it is because we
are not going away. How can I get the money, now that that horrible man
is gone? how can I get it?" and she buried her head in her hand and
thought. Presently an idea struck her: she might go back to Meeson and
eat her words, and sell him the copyright of her new book for £100, as
the agreement provided. That would not be enough, however; for travelling
with an invalid is expensive; but she might offer to bind herself over to
him for a term of years as a tame author, like those who worked in the
Hutches. She was sure that he would be glad to get her, if only he could
do so at his own price. It would be slavery worse than any penal
servitude, and even now she shudders at the prospect of prostituting her
great abilities to the necessities of such work as Meeson's made their
thousands out of--work out of which every spark of originality was
stamped into nothingness, as though it were the mark of the Beast. Yes,
it would be dreadful--it would break her heart; but she was prepared to
have her heart broken and her genius wrung out of her by inches, if only