of joy. She had still preserved the few gold pieces which Leonard had
taken back to her on his first visit to Miss Starke's. She had now gone
out and bought wool and implements for work; and meanwhile she had paid
the rent.

Leonard did not object to the work, but he blushed deeply when he knew
about the rent, and was very angry. He paid back to her that night what
she had advanced; and Helen wept silently at his pride, and wept more
when she saw the next day a woful hiatus in his wardrobe.

But Leonard now worked at home, and worked resolutely; and Helen sat by
his side, working too; so that next day, and the next, slipped peacefully
away, and in the evening of the second he asked her to walk out in the
fields. She sprang up joyously at the invitation, when bang went the
door, and in reeled John Burley,--drunk,--and so drunk!




CHAPTER X.

And with Burley there reeled in another man,--a friend of his, a man who
had been a wealthy trader and once well to do, but who, unluckily, had
literary tastes, and was fond of hearing Burley talk. So, since he had
known the wit, his business had fallen from him, and he had passed
through the Bankrupt Court. A very shabby-looking dog he was, indeed,
and his nose was redder than Burley's.

John made a drunken dash at poor Helen. "So you are the Pentheus in
petticoats who defies Bacchus," cried he; and therewith he roared out a