up with me all night; and honour us by
sleeping at our poor little cottage."

I did not expect he would have done it;
but after a few minutes' silence he agreed to
my proposal. I hastened home, and told
Ethelinda, and both of us crying, we heaped
up the fire, and spread the table with food,
and made up a bed in one corner of the floor.
While I stood ready to go I saw Ethelinda
open the great chest in which we kept our
treasures; and out she took a fine Holland
shift that had been one of my mother's
wedding shifts; and, seeing what she was after,
I went upstairs and brought down a piece of
rare old lace, a good deal darned to be sure,
but still old Brussels point, bequeathed to
me long ago by my god-mother, Mrs. Dawson.
"We huddled these things under our cloaks,
locked the door behind us and set out to do
all we could now for poor Miss Phillis. We
found the Squire sitting just as we left him;
I hardly knew if he understood me when I
told him how to unlock our door, and gave
him the key; though I spoke as distinctly as
ever I could for the choking in my throat.
At last he rose and went; and Ethelinda and
I composed her poor thin limbs to decent
rest, and wrapped her in the fine Holland
shift; and then I plaited up my lace into a
close cap to tie up the wasted features. When
all was done we looked upon her from a little
distance.

"A Morton to die of hunger!" said Ethelinda
solemnly. "We should not have dared to
think that such a thing was within the chances
of life; do you remember that evening, when
you and I were little children, and she a merry
young lady, peeping at us from behind her
fan?"

We did not cry any more; we felt very
still and awe- struck. After a while I said,
"I wonder if after all the young Squire did
go to our house. He had a strange look
about him. If I dared I would go and see."
I opened the door; the night was black as
pitch; the air very still. "I'll go," said I;
and off I went, not meeting a creature, for it
was long past eleven. I reached our house;
the window was long and low, and the
shutters were old and shrunk. I could peep
between them well, and see all that was going
on. He was there sitting over the fire, never
shedding a tear; but seeming as if he saw his
past life in the embers. The food we had
prepared was untouched. Once or twice, during
my long watch (I was more than an hour
away), he turned towards the food, and made
as though he would have eaten it, and then
shuddered back; but at last he seized it, and
tore it with his teeth, and laughed and
rejoiced over it like some starved animal. I
could not keep from crying then. He gorged
himself with great morsels; and when he
could eat no more it seemed as if his strength
for suffering had come back; he threw
himself on the bed, and such a passion of despair
I never heard of, much less ever saw. I
could not bear to witness it. The dead Miss
Phillis lay calm and still; her trials were
over. I would go back and watch with
Ethelinda.

When the pale grey morning dawn stole in,
making us shiver and shake after our vigil,
the Squire returned. We were both mortal
afraid of him, we knew not why. He looked
quiet enough—the lines were worn deep
before—no new traces were there. He stood
and looked at his aunt for a minute or two.
Then he went up into the loft above the room
where we were; he brought a small paper
parcel down; bade us keep on our watch yet
a little time. First one and then the other of
us went home to get some food. It was a
bitter black frost; no one was out, who could
stop indoors; and those who were out cared
not to stop to speak. Towards afternoon the
air darkened, and a great snow-storm came
on. We durst not be left, only one alone;
yet at the cottage where Miss Phillis had
lived there was neither fire nor fuel. So we
sate and shivered and shook till morning.
The Squire never came that night nor all
next day.

"What must we do?" asked Ethelinda,
broken down entirely. "I shall die if I stop
here another night. We must tell the
neighbours and get help for the watch."

"So we must," said I, very low and
grieved. I went out and told the news at the
nearest house, taking care, you may be sure,
never to speak of the hunger and cold Miss
Phillis must have endured in silence. It was
bad enough to have them come in, and make
their remarks on the poor bits of furniture;
for no one had known their bitter straits even
as much as Ethelinda and me, and we had
been shocked at the bareness of the place. I
did hear that one or two of the more ill-
conditioned had said, it was not for nothing we
had kept the death to ourselves for two
nights; that to judge from the lace on her
cap there must have been some pretty
pickings. Ethelinda would have contradicted
this, but I bade her let it alone; it would
save the memory of the proud Mortons from
the shame that poverty is thought to be; and
as for us, why we could live it down. But on
the whole people came forward kindly;
money was not wanting to bury her well, if
not grandly as became her birth; and many
a one was bidden to the funeral who might
have looked after her a little more in her
lifetime. Among others was Squire Hargreaves
from Bothwick Hall over the Moors. He was
some kind of far-away cousin to the Mortons.
So when he came he was asked to go chief
mourner in Squire Morton's strange absence,
which I should have wondered at the more
if I had not thought him almost crazy when
I watched his ways through the shutter that
night. Squire Hargreaves started when they
paid him the compliment of asking him to
take the head of the coffin.

"Where is her nephew?" asked he.