but their kindness is often wonderful!

Margaret, whose courage always rose when it was needed, neither gave way or got unduly frightened. But she had all the dread of necessary expense that yet could not be met. Grace, always thoughtless and often unreasonable, wanted and asked for a thousand things difficult to obtain, and of course proportionately expensive. Money melted fast. It was impossible to worry Grace, and the burden fell with all its weight upon poor Margaret.

She took counsel with the landlady, and found that she had acted unwisely in so doing. Mrs. Munro had imagined from their appearance and all else that they had plenty of money. Margaret, in her great inexperience, talked of having none, meaning no money for heavy extra expenses. Mrs. Munro, with a sensible loss of respect in her manner, inquired sharply,

"And how am I to be paid, and me doing all I can?"

"I do not mean that," said poor Margaret; "but we are not rich enough, my sister and I, to be able to buy expensive things."

"People should say what they mean," said Mrs. Munro, slightly consoled, but not altogether easy in her mind.

She took counsel with the doctor; and he, who knew of their connection with Mr. Sandford, and indeed thought the relationship closer than it really was, reassured her on the subject.

"But how comes it then that these two young ladies are stravaging about the country by themselves and na a maid or a soul with them, and they come of rich folk?" asked Mrs. Munro.

"Young ladies have often independent ideas," said Mr. Burns; "but when I was staying with a friend, not far from Renton, the talk there was about the arrival of these young ladies, indeed, I myself saw them there one day walking in the town."

"Well! well! and so I need not be anxious," said Mrs. Munro, much relieved; "but what with gaseous waters and fruits there will be something big to pay; and dear me, Miss Margaret's a nice young lady, she ought to have some one to help, she's nigh worn out already, and it's like to be a time yet before she can see her sister out of bed."

"Her sister is very seriously ill," said the doctor, with a graver face; "I am afraid she is constitutionally delicate. I wonder what her mother died of."

"Oh! I think that will have been a natural-like death, for Miss Margaret said she died in India, and that's a country that kills many folks," she said, comfortably; "they that live come home yellow, and when they don't turn yellow they die."

"Come, come," said Dr. Burns, "I know many that neither turn yellow nor die, that is merely a prejudice."

"It is no prejudice, doctor. I had an uncle once, and he was like one of they dried things they call mummies and show in museums; and people said if you could see his inside it would be all shrivelled up like an old walnut, and I am sure that never was in our family. It was all India; he was a soldier, poor man, and had gone through a deal."

Dr. Burns had no time to carry on the discussion: he was professionally anxious about Grace, she was still so feverish, and, though the acute pain was lessened, her cough was most distressing, and her weakness very great.

"Have you no one to come and help you?" he asked Margaret one day when he had found her worn out, suffering acutely from headache, and in a very depressed state.

"No one," she answered, in a low voice. "I did propose some one to my sister, but she says if she came she would get much worse."

"It is really thoughtless, and, I may say, selfish of her," he said, earnestly. "If my wife were at home I should send her to help you; let me try and get a nurse for you?"

"Oh, no!" said Margaret, earnestly and very eagerly. "I cannot—we cannot afford the expense. I am doing my best, my sister does not suffer from my want of experience," and she looked up very fearfully.

"I am not thinking of her so much as of you," he said, bluntly. Then he went on, in a matter-of-fact tone—"Your sister is better; the pain is lessened, but the fever still runs high. I do not think she is so strong as you are. What did your mother die of? do you know? She died when you were a baby in India, Mrs. Munro tells me, probably of some fever, did she not?"

"She died of consumption," said Margaret, who did not for a moment see the connection of ideas. Then it flashed across her, and she said, clasping her hands, and in a perfect agony of feeling—"You do not—you cannot—think Grace so ill. Oh! tell me, tell me;" and, weakened by her long watching and hastily-taken meals, she lost her self-command, and cried pitifully.

"I am sorry to have frightened you," said Dr. Burns, who understood her tears, and who, while full of sympathy, spoke in that calm tone which quelled her excitement better than a show of kindness might have done.

"There is no danger at present, absolutely none; but there is great weakness, and very great delicacy."

"What should we do? What ought she to do?" asked Margaret, struggling for her self-command, ashamed of having so completely lost it.

"When she is able for it, she ought to go to some drier climate," he said, looking at the window, where, every now and again, the raindrops came with a vicious splash, "and, forgive me Miss Rivers, but you cannot command many comforts here. Why do you not write to Mr. Sandford."

"That we cannot do, least of all for Grace!" poor Margaret said unguardedly.

"Of course, I have no right to interfere, but I cannot help feeling interested in the case, and your sister ought to be moved soon; that room is too small for an invalid; the surroundings are too depressing. To be of full use to her you should be cheerful and well; and, bless me! this is not the place for either of you. I would get out of it as soon as I could—if you will forgive my saying so."

He left the room downstairs, where she went with him each day, to learn, without Grace's overhearing, all he had to say. Margaret stood like a statue after his departure, looking blankly before her, seeing nothing.

What could she do? What was to become of them? She resolved to make one final appeal to her sister about writing to Mrs. Dorriman. If she would consent to this—if she would allow her to endeavour to make friends with Mr. Sandford, all would be well.

If not ... Margaret came to herself with a start. A horrible conviction began to pierce through all her anxiety. The end would have to be her marriage with Mr. Drayton.

There was nothing else. These two courses alone were open to her. After all, as he was not free, did it matter so much what became of her? In all good women's natures there is a vein of self-sacrifice. Her life, she thought, would not have been in vain if she could save her sister. And she did not in the least comprehend Mr. Drayton's character.

She thought him unrefined, noisy, but probably good-hearted and generous. She thought of Grace so completely as a bit of herself that it never for a moment crossed her mind that any one would think of them apart. The absence of all close ties, save that one, made it all in all to her.

Slowly she went upstairs. She would speak to Grace. She would appeal to her. She knew only too well that if she acted without her consent, if she appealed to Mrs. Dorriman, Grace would work herself into a fever; the consequences might be fatal to her. She could not write and not speak, because she knew that she had grown very dear to the poor woman, who had so little outlet for her affections, and that she would come herself to look after them.

When she went into her sister's room she found her asleep; but it was not the sleep of perfect convalescence. There was still much fever, and as poor Margaret watched her tossings and wretched moanings at intervals, her heart sank, and she feared everything!

CHAPTER III.

Sir Albert Gerald hurried to his Welsh home finding the tediousness of his journey and the inevitable jolting of the railway-carriage almost beyond his