"You have been such a comfort to us," she said. "Dorothy told me everything; and I know that if you had not come just at the opportune moment, we should have lost our mother as well as our father. I'll do all in my power to hurry matters, so that we can come to London before the winter." "Yes," said George. He was a finely built young fellow, with a handsome face. He was not the least like Effie, who was dark and rather small, like her mother. George had the doctor's physique; he had great square shoulders, his eyes were frank and blue like his father's, but his mouth wanted his father's firmness. "Effie," he said. "I don't know how I am to bring myself to confide in you." "Confide in me?" she said, with a little start. "We always did tell our secrets to one another, but all this terrible trouble seems to have put childish things away. Have you really a secret, George, to tell me?" "I don't know how I can tell it to you," he replied; his lips quivered--he looked down. Effie clasped his arm affectionately. "You know I would do anything for you," she said. "Yes; I know you are the best of girls, and you're awfully pretty, too. I know Fred Lawson will think so when he sees you." "Who is he?" "A friend of mine--a right good fellow--he is a medical student at St. Joseph's Hospital. I have often met him, and he has talked to me about his own sisters, and one day I showed him your photograph, and he said what a pretty girl you were. Somehow, Effie, I never thought of you as pretty until Fred said so. I suppose fellows don't think how their sisters look, although they love them very dearly; but when Fred said it, it opened my eyes. Dear, dear, why am I talking like this, when time is so precious, and I--Effie, when I came down that day to see my father, I was in trouble--great trouble; the shock of seeing him seemed to banish it from my mind, but it cannot be banished--it cannot be banished, Effie, and I have no one to confide in now but you." "You must tell me of course," said Effie; she felt herself turning pale. She could not imagine what George's trouble was. The night was dusk; she raised her eyes to her brother's face--he avoided meeting them. He had a stick in his hand, and he began to poke holes in the gravel. "How much money have we got to live on?" he asked abruptly. "How much money have we to live on?" repeated Effie. "I believe, when all is collected, that there will be something like a hundred a year for mother and Agnes and Katie and the two little children. Of course I am going to support myself _somehow_, and you are naturally off our hands." "It's awful," said George; "it's awful to be so starvingly poor as that. Why, I get a hundred a year now; fancy five people living on a sum on which I never can make both ends meet!"