He is absent to-day.' Mrs.Pagnell remarked: 'I must say he earns his money easily.' Aminta had softened herself with the allusion to the shortness of his time with them.

Her aunt's coarse hint, and the thought of his loss, and the banishment it would be to her all the way to Steignton, checked a sharp retort she could have uttered, but made it necessary to hide her eyes from sight.

She went to her bedroom, and flung herself on the bed.
Even so little as an unspoken defence of him shook her to floods of tears..