Mother said she did; for she could talk, and that was the only thing she still could do; it seemed to Nora that even the faculty of speech was threatened. Mrs. Gibb spoke very quietly and very slowly, and sometimes she paused, even in the middle of a word; as she listened Nora wondered how long it would be before that pause remained unbroken. Her landlady lay on a chair bedstead. Miss Gibb and her brother, between them, had contrived a method, of which every one was proud, by means of an arrangement of sloping boards, to raise her head and shoulders, when she desired to be raised. Nora was not surprised to find that, in common with the rest of the house, she was spotlessly neat and clean; but she was conscious of something akin to a feeling of surprise when she observed the expression which was on her face; and the more attentively she observed the more the feeling grew. Although she seemed so old--the cares of this world had pressed heavily on her--still, in a sense, she seemed younger than her daughter; for on her face was a look of peace, as on the face of those who are conscious that they also serve although they only stand and wait. "I have nothing of which to complain," she told her lodger; "only--it's hard on Angelina." Nora noticed that she always referred to her daughter by her full Christian name. Angelina remonstrated. "Now, mother, don't you be silly; if you are going to say things like that I shall have to send Miss Lindsay away." The mother looked at her daughter with a look in her eyes which, when she saw it, brought the tears into Nora's; there was in it an eloquence which she wondered if, with all her wisdom, Angelina comprehended. If she had only been able to take the burden of the mother off the daughter's shoulders, how gladly she would have done it. But the days when she was able to bear the burdens of others were gone; it seemed not unlikely that she would be crushed out of existence by her own. CHAPTER XIX A YOUNG LADY IN SEARCH OF A LIVING