Hilary isn't a bit timid; and I always tells Miss Hilary every
thing."

Nevertheless, though she was so ignorant as never to have heard of a
latch-key, she had the wit to see that all was not right. She even
lay awake, in her closet off Miss Leaf's room, whence she could hear
the murmur of her two mistresses talking together, long after they
retired--lay broad awake for an hour or more, trying to put things
together--the sad things that she felt certain must have happened
that day, and wondering what Mr. Ascott could possibly want with the
key. Also, why he had asked her about it, instead of telling his
aunts at once; and why he had treated her in the matter with such
astonishing civility.

It may be said a servant had no business to think about these things,
to criticize her young master's proceedings, or wonder why her
mistresses were sad: that she had only to go about her work like an
automaton, and take no interest in any thing. I can only answer to
those who like such service, let them have it: and as they sow they
will assuredly reap. But long after Elizabeth, young and hearty, was
soundly snoring on her hard, cramped bed, Johanna and Hilary Leaf,
after a brief mutual pretence of sleep, soon discovered by both, lay
consulting together over ways and means. How could the family
expenses, beginning with twenty-five shillings per week as rent,
possibly be met by the only actual certain family income, their £50
per annum from a mortgage? For the Misses Leaf were or that
old-fashioned stamp which believed that to reckon an income by mere
probabilities is either insanity or dishonesty.

Common arithmetic soon proved that this £50 a year could not maintain