friends. Servants stayed with them for years, and it was easy to fill
their places when they left. They kept one more of them than was needed,
for comfort's sake. She was a good mistress; he, for all his passionate
rating of his dependents at times, was a good master.

Was all this finished now? Was it possible? The old pleasant, natural
order of things--the only order to which she had ever been accustomed.
Finished now?

And if so what would follow?

Furniture sale. Dust of strange feet in the familiar rooms. People she
would never have dreamed of admitting there pulling about her carpets,
poking her feather-beds, turning up their noses at the breakfast-room
chair-covers which were shabby, there was no good in denying it; and with
her not by to explain they preferred them so. No more expensive
paint-boxes and toys for Franky; Bessie and darling Deleah in shabby hats;
Bernard without pocket-money, made a banker's clerk, perhaps--she had
heard her husband say bank-clerks had no prospects, poor beggars!
Bernard--her handsome Bernard to be a "poor beggar"--!

A sudden vertigo seized her: the hall was whirling round; she stretched a
hand blindly for support, and pulled over an umbrella-stand which fell
with a crash and clatter.

The girls and Bernard came running out. "What on earth are you doing,
mama? Have you hurt yourself? What is it?"

She had subsided upon a hall-chair, her face was ghastly, all her strength
seemed gone. "I felt faint. I am better," she got out, and looked