luxuries relinquished, in order that the boy might honorably pay for
pleasures he might so easily have done without! If they could have
seen the weight of apprehension which then sank like a stone on these
long-tried hearts, never to be afterward removed: lightened
sometimes, but always--however Ascott might promise and amend--always
there! On such a discovery, surely, these two "poor ghosts" would
have fled away moaning, wishing they had died childless, or that
during their mortal lives any amount of self restraint and self
compulsion had purged from their natures the accursed thing; the sin
which had worked itself out in sorrow upon every one belonging to
them, years after their own heads were laid in the quiet dust.

"We must do it," was the conclusion the Misses Leaf unanimously came
to; even Selina; who with all her faults, had a fair share of good
feeling and of that close clinging to kindred which is found in
fallen households, or households whom the sacred bond of common
poverty, has drawn together in a way that large, well-to-do home
circles can never quite understand.

"We must not let the boy remain in debt; it would be such a disgrace
to the family."

"It is not the remaining in debt, but the incurring of it, which is
the real disgrace to Ascott and the family."

"Hush Hilary," said Johanna, pointing to the opening door; but it was
too late.

Elizabeth, coming suddenly in--or else the ladies had been so
engrossed with their conversation that they had not noticed her--had