gentle hand to tend her, and let the sun in
upon her, and keep her from withering away
in the gaol. Picciola and the unemployed
had been together before that, in those
sunshiny haymaking days, when there were
lighter things to think of than pure brain-
grinding. That was Conalore.

But there was another—the sister—Prue,
the quiet child. The quiet child was a
different order of creature; very small, and
with pale eyes, that blinked. A sharp,
pretty thing, with hair tinted reddishly, and
running in a ripple, like her sister's. But if
the stately sister was as a Grecian statue,
here was the little old woman that lived in a
shoe. Not dwarfish; but perhaps sharp as
a needle, perhaps cunning as a she-fox. Quiet
child Prue could read a situation and its
contingent shapes for months forward, about
as well as your generals forecast their campaigns,
which, as they do ill enough sometimes,
it had best be said; as well as that
ingenious master carries three chess games
in his head all at once. She bore all her
wits about her, did Prue Rhode, the quiet child.

They came in on that arrival day, and the
first words Prue spoke, whispering her sister,
were, "Hi, for the bastille! Hi, for the two
penitentiary women!" To whom Martha
Daxe, as has been said, gave ogre's greeting,
glancing on her well-staircase. She even
fondled them over, taking Conalore about
the waist, to feel what stamina there was in
her; from which embrace the poor statue
took a little comfort, though the gaol had
already done its work upon her.

"Come this way," Martha Daxe said,
opening the door of the dun room. "See
your cousin in his workshop, where he makes
all the money!"

The unemployed raised his head wearily,
and took them all in, with a feeble stare.
The whir of the grindstone was still in his ears.

"O, cousin Lyttleton!" Conalore said,
running forward to him, "what has changed
you so? You are killing yourself!"

Time was—in those country days—when
he would have coloured up and felt his
pulse beat the quicker at such a greeting.
But of late there had grown up in that
region where his heart used to beat, a yellow
parchment bundle, of the same shape, bound
through and through with red tape cartilages.
So he stood up quite impassive, and
bloodless.

Prue, who had been blinking curiously at
him all this while, now says abruptly; "So,
here it is where all the money is made!
How much now? Sackfuls?"

Grandaunt Daxe chuckles delightedly.
"It is perfect coining, dears," she says.
"There he sits and works, and keeps us all
in meat, drink, and clothing."

"I thought so; cousin Lyttleton was
always held so clever," Prue answers,
reflectively. "He will give us all fortunes when
we are married."

Conalore's gentle eyes were bent on him
tearfully, as he winced and shrunk away from
these words.

"Dearest cousin," she said, "think more
of your own precious health and strength,
which you are only destroying. What is
money, compared to life?"

"Hear, madam!" says Martha Daxe;
"only hear madam, and her fine speeches!
Favour us, ma'am, with the name of the
last new novel! Butter your bread, ma'am,
with those fine sayings; and, for that matter,
his too! Come away! Come up, and leave
the gentleman."

And with that she took them away up the
well-staircase, round through her dismal
chambers, railing all the while, until she had
left their hearts as heavy as they could well
be. Before night she had gotten out of Conalore
at least a month's interest in advance.

With three months' sojourn in the
House of Correction, they had fallen quite
into the penitentiary ways; taking penitentiary
diet, penitentiary discipline, and penitentiary
tongue-scourging from the matron
of the house, who throve and fattened on it:
but they went about as two broken Magdalenes,
under process of being reformed.
Which likeness refers mainly to Conalore;
and had that fine, wavy hair of hers been
clipped close, she would have touched that
original even closer.

All which time, however, it went pretty
much the same with the overworked: with
this addition, that by laying his eyes close,
of nights, to such wretched light as was
served out to him, they grew to be strained
and weak. Of which he made small account;
but worked on desperately—hopelessly and
against all hope. Nothing coming or likely
to come. Wear out brain and eyes. Wear
out nerves and life: nothing coming or likely
to come. Weariest round from the gaol to
chambers, from chambers back again, all to
the same tune. Nothing coming.

III.

WHICHELO'S Trusts was about as well
known in the Courts as any of the leading
cases. Whichelo the uncle had been dishonest
trustee, and Whichelo minors, whom he had
defrauded, were now two threadbare old
gentlemen, who had gone through life striving
idly to close their fingers upon Justice, and
take hold of her. But as these were the fine
old times when Replication, Rejoinder,
Rebutter, and Surrebutter, with other such
company, throve and battened on suitors—
the threadbare gentlemen had been kept off
(and on, too), from minority to majority, and
from that to old age. Trustee Whichelo was
fat and opulent, and rather fancied the thing
would last out his own time. Many tried
their hands at Whichelo's Trusts, with
about the same profit. Nothing could be
made of it, such power had Surrebutter and
his brethren. Until at last, solicitor in the