CHAPTER II.

POVERTY KNOCKS AT THE DOOR.

"HOW does it look, Phyllis?"

The child glanced up from her lessons, and stretched out her hand across the table for a fine piece of cambric which her mother was holding out to her.

She took it under the lamp, and examined it critically.

"I've seen you do it better, mother."

"I was afraid so," answered Mrs. Ashlyn slowly. "I can do no more work by candlelight."

"Mother!" exclaimed the child, with an accent of dismay.

"I have feared it for a long time," she said, passing her hand over her eyes, and leaning back in her chair rather wearily.

Phyllis looked in her face consideringly, and then her eyes met a pair of dark ones opposite—those of a young man seated with a pile of books before him, in the study of which he had been buried, till interrupted by the serious nature of the conversation between his two companions.

For that it was a serious conversation both knew.

Mrs. Ashlyn was a widow with very limited means, and had been accustomed to eke out her income by fine needlework for a large baby-linen warehouse in the neighbouring town.

If this source of income should fail, what would become of them? So thought the three seated in that cosy little room.

From outside came the subdued roar of the sea, as its ceaseless waves broke on the beach near; while inside the clock ticked on audibly, and the lamp shone on Phyllis's shining hair and on Otto's curly head, both bent over their respective books, though their thoughts were busy elsewhere.

Otto, the son of an old friend, had lived with Mrs. Ashlyn for three years, while preparing for his medical examinations, and had become, as Phyllis expressed it, "quite one of the family." But at any rate, he shared all their interests, and, so far as he understood them, sympathized in their cares.

What would happen now, if one of the chief sources of income should be permanently dried up?

The meditations of the three were broken in upon by a light step coming swiftly up the little garden path, and by the turning of the handle of the front door.

"There's Gertrude!" exclaimed Phyllis rather unnecessarily, for both her companions knew that quite well.

Mrs. Ashlyn rose, folded her work carefully into a spotless handkerchief, and placed it in a dainty, covered basket which stood at her side. Then she looked up with a smile as the door opened to admit a girl of about twenty-two, who came in with a bright look and manner that seemed like a May breeze.

"You look like news!" said Phyllis. "Are they going to keep you on?"

"No," answered Gertrude.

Mrs. Ashlyn's eyes were fixed on her face inquiringly, with an anxiety in her answer which the others understood, if Gertrude did not.

"No," pursued Gertrude, "they are not. They want to make other arrangements. So now there is nothing to be done but to look out for something else!"

"That is not so easy," said Mrs. Ashlyn. "Camptown is not so very large, and the schools there are limited in number. But I dare say we shall find something in time."

"Of course we shall," said Gertrude heartily. "Why, mother, do you not 'know' that all our ways are in our Father's hands?"

Mrs. Ashlyn was leaving the room, and received her daughter's kiss with a sweet, patient smile, the patience of which was not noticed by her child so much as its sweetness.

"Mother! I had something to ask you. Now Phyllis is so 'competent' and—well—everything, would you spare me if I heard of a situation near London—at Hampstead?"

"Have you?" asked her mother, starting. And she was not the only one in that room who started too.

"Yes, Miss Timely told me of one—"

"I will think of it," said Mrs. Ashlyn quietly.

And then the door closed and the three young people were left alone.

Gertrude looked after her mother with a puzzled look. Then she said to Phyllis—

"Is mother not well?"

But Phyllis did not answer at once, so Otto said quietly—

"Her eyes have troubled her again to-night, and I think she has gone to bathe them."

"You speak in a different tone from what you do generally, Otto," she said, going to his side. "Has anything happened while I have been gone?"

"Nothing but what I said—nothing fresh," he added in a quick undertone. "But I think it has come over your mother more than ever before—what I have long foreseen—that the work which she does so beautifully is injuring her sight, and that she will soon be unable to do it."

"Otto!"

There was a pause. The young man was gathering his books together, as if he had finished.

"Have you done?" asked Phyllis, surprised.

"For to-night," he answered. "I am going for a walk along the beach."

[Illustration]