now, his early bringing up had been more
luxurious and refined than ours had been;
so that he in a manner condescended when
he came into our home sphere, and he
made me understand that he condescended.
You know how men can make women
understand this. With James of course
Ashley was all that was genial and brotherly,
though there was that certain flavour of the
superior being in all he said or did; but he
treated me very much as if I was an upper
servant or an automaton. He never spoke
to me; never even shook hands with
me when he came in or went away;
if he had anything to ask, anything he
wanted done for him, he looked at James
and asked him, though I had to do it; and
if by any chance he came when James was
out, and waited for him, he used to take a
book and busy himself in that, without paying
more attention to me than he did to the
cat. And not quite so much. So this was
how I knew that Ashley Graham held himself
superior to us. He was too honourable
to treat me as his equal when he knew that
I was his inferior, I used to think; and I
liked him all the better for his haughtiness.

Ashley knew very little about our real
circumstances, and we hid the seamy side
from him, perhaps foolishly. For instance,
he did not know that we had only two
rooms; that behind the large old Indian
screen of our sitting-room was James's bed;
and that the other little room at the top of
the house was mine. He was as poor as
we were, but he was in society and we were
not; and that gave him an appearance of
superior condition, which of course he
wanted to keep up for the sake of his
family. Still, he knew that James did not
sell many pictures, and, as I tell you, we
were all half-starved together. But Ashley
thought we were better off than we were,
and only I knew how poor he was.

He was often in our rooms, and lately he
got into the way of sleeping there. The
first time he asked for a bed it was a wild
wet winter's night, when no one with a
heart could have turned out even a dog. In
those days he lived over at Holloway, or
some unearthly place like that; it was past
twelve, and the last omnibus had gone; a
cab would have ruined him outright—a
cab from Percy-street to Holloway for a
poor painter who did not sell his pictures,
the thing was impossible!—so when he
asked, in that off-hand cavalier way of his,
if we could take him in, and James looked
at me, I answered briskly, " Yes, certainly;"
and, with a sign to James, " if Mr. Graham
does not object to a little room at the top
of the house."

No, Mr. Graham did not object to a little
room at the top of the house: he said this
quite graciously, as if he was conferring a
favour, not receiving it; upon which I
went up-stairs, and began to arrange my
own room for him. It was a pleasure!
Georgie! I was just a slave, and nothing
more! I brought out my poor little hoard
of meagre prettinesses, and laid them about
the room where they made the most effect;
I hid away my own things, so that he should
not know whose room it was; and when my
brother took him up-stairs, even he scarcely
seemed to know what I had done, and I really
believe imagined I had somehow changed
my room, and that I was to be quite
comfortable myself for the night. He did not
see me again to ask me how I had managed
—I am speaking now of James—and neither
he nor Ashley knew that I had passed the
night sitting on a wooden chair by the empty
kitchen hearth; for the landlady let us have
a little kitchen for my cooking and washing,
&c. It had been originally the scullery,
and was a dirty, damp old hole; but it did
well enough. We were too poor to be fastidious.

In the morning I took up Ashley's hot
water and his boots, which I had cleaned
with my own hands. He thought it was
the landlady's servant who had waited on
him, and as he passed me on the stairs he
gave her sixpence, which the girl took quite
tranquilly, as even less than her due. Those
boots let me into the secret of Ashley's
poverty. They were old and worn, and I
mended them for him, I must say, cleverly.
I often did this; for Ashley, never dreaming
that I had only a hard wooden chair for my
bed when he slept with us, continually now
overstayed his time, playing chess or " talking
shop" with my brother, and at last got
to ask for his room as almost a matter of
course. James was too proud and timid,
poor fellow! to tell the truth, and I was too
happy to be of use to Ashley to murmur at
any sacrifice that I could make. It was the
sweetest time of my life! That humble unrecognised
self-sacrifice for the one you
honour is almost more delicious than gratitude!

And all this time Ashley took no more
notice of me than before. I was very young.
James was only a protection in name, not
in reality; and, girl as I was, I could understand
something of the motive of his reserve,
and see into the value of it. And yet I used
to think he might have been just a little