the roof, as from the bottom of a coal-
pit. And, at the foot of the well staircase
was this dun room, where Mr. Lyttleton,
the unemployed barrister, was grinding down
his brain against the hard, cold, stony law.
Every morning, from five until nine, he was
holding his brain to that gritty-wheel; then
lifted his head for a space while he walked to
chambers, kept it there well down the whole
day until dinner; and, from that time out
again until midnight: all which cruel grinding
left him, still Mr. Lyttleton, the unemployed:
left him besides a tall-stooped,
delicate-looking being, with a cold white
smile, and thirty-six years of his life gone by.
With that cold white smile, however, and a
strange, defiant power in his breast, he had
struggled on ever since that night when the
grandfather had expired with the cocked hat
on his head; all which season—a season six
years long—he had been fighting off poverty;
fighting, too, in a cruel, wearing, grinding,
domestic war.

For there was a Mrs. Daxe who lived in the
old house, too, and had a room, off the well-
staircase. She was a younger sister of that
defunct grandsire, a woman, say, of some
seventy years old, but strong and full of
life, and furnished with a terrible tongue;
reviling all things. The gloomy house was hers.
It had been left to her by will,—hers whatever
money there passed out into the world from
that gloomy place. Whatever little moneys
the unemployed could gather in might go in
part to household expenses, fined down to
starvation point, and she would make up the
balance. She was own sister to the departed
miser, and neighbours said to neighbours that
she must have chests of gold and silver—huge
iron-bound, crammed chests—lying hidden up
and down. What else, indeed, could be the
significance of the black carved corner
cupboards; and the vast garde-robes, blacker
still, and the pigeon holes, and the heavy oak
case, each on its four twisted legs; to say
nothing of traps where the legs of the
bedstead came? Aye, indeed; but, with thus
serving out subsistence to the rest, she had
back interest for her money, usurious cent,
per cent., compound interest.

All in that matter of reviling, coming down
the well staircase to revile, bursting in
periodically to the dun room with reviling
purport, and making him lift his brain from that
grindstone to hear her,—passing from him to
the other Being that lived there, and on her
means. Such surprising interest as she had
for her money! That other being was Mary
Lyttleton, sister to Mr. Lyttleton; who was
cold as he was; like him in mind, too,
only that with her there was no such
thing as Hope; for Hope had long since
been driven out of her: ever since, indeed,
the day she came under the shadow of
that roof, having arrived from a fresh country
place, from sweetly-smelling hay and
sweeter gardens, full of flowers, in which
company she had lived all her life, to be
imprisoned henceforth and for aye in gaol and
dismal reformatory. So, from the very first,
as has been said, she had cast Hope away
from her, almost as soon as the bolt had been
shot behind her; and went through her round
of duties in a dull, impassive way. She took
her share of the reviling with the rest, accepting
it with a sort of welcome.  It was wonderful
to see how Mrs. Daxe throve upon
reviling; drawing from it life, and strength,
and vigour; in other words, surprising
interest for the money.

She came down one evening to the door of
the unemployed's room, and stood outside
listening to the grindstone. It was whirring
round briskly; particles of brain flying off
in sparkles. Case! case! case! statute,
point, dictum, precedent and principle!
She was come down, having a weary
moment on hand, to work an old lever,
to rasp him with a favourite grater. The
grater was no other than this;—a very
good friend had, on the grandfather's death,
proffered to the unemployed a place at a
desk (mercantile) of the value of two
hundred pounds yearly, which offer the
barrister had almost scorned—had declined,
certainly—from desperate assurance of his
own powers, and wild confidence in the
walk he had chosen. Better starvation
than a desk; welcome consumptive chest
and eternal grindstone rather! For this
election, however, was to come terrible
reckoning; she who furnished him with
bread and meat and drink shrieking at
him ceaselessly that one upbraiding cry of
"Jordan's Place! Jordan's Place! Why did
you refuse Jordan's Place?" Shooting it
through the tympanum of his ear into his
brain, until that cry came to sound in his ears
in the middle of nights; waking him from
weary dreams. It was astonishing how she
worked on him with that grater. The grindstone
was torture most sweet and acceptable
after it.

On this evening she had come down with
the grater newly roughed and whetted; and,
with that, another instrument which might
come hereafter to be of the same profit.
There was a dim candle burning, which was
wasting the eyesight of him who read; but
it was Mrs. Martha Daxe who furnished it;
so there was no reasonable ground of complaint.

"Well!" said Martha Daxe, striding in
with that strong, youthful stride of hers;
"Suck! suck away! suck it all in! suck
away until the day of judgment, and see what
good it will do us. You addle-headed fool,
do you mind me?"

Mr. Lyttleton had lifted his brain carefully
from off the grindstone, and laid his
finger on the particular clause of the act of
parliament he was grinding his brain upon,
to mark it.

"Do ye mind me?" Grandaunt Daxe