Mrs. Day's Daughters

Misfo

tween her husband's appearance before the magistrates and the Spring Assizes at which his trial came on. It is more than possible that if George Boult and Sir Francis Forcus had refused to stand

, who, now that that strange talk of his father being in prison was over, and his father here at home once more, holding no apprehension of the future, troubled his head no further about the matter. Him he sometimes t

old how it had been she who had arranged the matter of his bail. His little Deleah, to have gone on such an errand for him!

s about his neck, sobbing out that she knew-she knew-she knew he had done nothing wrong. He

ullen condemnatory attitude towards him,

held an altogether

gant household. Money which he could not earn in the legitimate exercise of his profession, nor come by honestly, had bee

ed himself to her in the first

ack upon herself, or to attempt reprisals. Of her defenceless submission he took advantage, and presently h

any one's mind a doubt of what the verdict must be. The

ce downwards upon the floor. The carpet was wet with her tears, its scent in her nostrils. For all her life tha

farthing she possessed, who was to pass years, perhaps, in prison, really her father? Who had been sometimes so affectionate to them all, always so loving and indulgent to her; who had sat in the square family pew with them al

seeing what their father had done as it affected themselves, and they did not spare him. Sometimes to them-the elder boy and girl-Mrs. Day felt constrained to talk. It was a relief to pent-up fee

e no word-excep

ather's office, decided to work for it at home, rather than at school, where all the other fellows knew. A letter was received from the head-mistress of the Establishment, "all of whose pupils were the daughte

re, and looking down on each other. Not but what there were some upon whose fathers I also looked down. The Clarks-the

oned. It would have been impossible to live within the four walls wherein the elder daughter and the younger son fought through the difficulties of imparting and acquiring knowledge. Either Franky, on his back, on the floor, was screaming and dangero

ekeeping. The change from lavishness to penury bewildered the poor woman, and the change from a table loaded with good things to one that was nearly bare was not skilfully made. For a time, until experience taught her, things they could have done without she continued to buy, and that which was really necessary they went wit

o plan? What are we all to do?"

out. If we're lucky it will on

w months, William,

hange for you. I've kept the lot of you in idleness till now.

re we to do? Where are we to work? I cannot

o a torrent of oaths. "Haven't I enough to bear?" he asked her. "Haven't I myself to think about? Is mine such a pleasant prospect, that you co

he best of times had scarcely known how to hold her ow

nd mama should not have had children if they were going to make such a muddle as this," she argued. Bessie had not wanted to be born, she decl

g, what are we to do?" she asked her father, with that note of a

t them," he pr

l we can't go with

papa said, and getting u

and for long shrank from any conversation with him, was at last

see, sir, in my sweating away at

Why

get through it, wh

Senior Cambridge Exam, they tell me,

er a profession, sir. From

ged to spend, among you. I was the goose that laid the golden egg; now circum

y give us some idea o

e accorded the mere women of his family, turned savagely. The poor wretch did not know how t

shouted at the boy. "You and your mother a

. I won't badge

e-to be granted a little pea

he asked of Bessie. "If I passed the blessed thing, where's the good? I shall have to be an err

hat he could not study in his bedroom without a fire, nor could he so much a

ouching the fender, his own feet as often as not on the bars; the rest of the family withdrawn as much as possible from the hearth. If there was talk among them as they sat at their table with their sewing, their painting, their books-and being young they talked, and even sometimes laughed-

tobacco. There was some good port wine in the cellar; he might as well drink it while he had the ch

respect and the knowledge that he had lost the respect of those who had loved him, the man altered. With astonishment they, who had known him all their lives, saw him in a few short weeks become selfish, greedy, unmannerly, even unclean. The ash

here, the elder boy and girl would look at each other with angry condemnation in their eyes. Such lapses from a hitherto observed code of good manners Mrs. Day bore with an apparently apathetic indifference. For years, truth

ad in her father's savage ways the despair, the scorn of himself, the rage with destiny, the bitter enmity against a world in which he was no longer to exist. Only Deleah felt in her heart the sorrow of it all-Deleah who was a reader of Thackeray, of Trollope, of Dickens, of Tennyson; whose eyes had

at whom Mrs. Day and her daughters peeped through curtained windows walked by with snowdrops, with violets, and presently with cowslips in their h