"There was no pride now; she had seen plainly enough my motive, and I could keep it up no longer, for being a weak, childish old fellow, whose thoughts would go back to some one who, had she lived, might have been just such a tall, graceful girl, my spectacles got so that I could not see through them, and when I spoke and tried to soothe her, it was in a cracked choking voice that I did not know for mine. "She left us at last, taking the money I had obtained for the first four volumes, and leaving me the others to sell for her--that was how we settled it was to be; and I'm afraid there was a little deceit about those last books when she came again. And that time I went home with her to the one room she occupied with her mother, and I wanted no telling, it was all plain enough what they had suffered, and that when the poor girl came to me she was weak and faint for want of food. "Her mother was lying upon a sort of sofa-bed when I went, and it had been arranged that I was to have come about some books; for the old lady, though she lay there in pain, worn to a shadow, and was busily sewing together little scraps of skins for the furriers, was that proud that she would have resented anything she could have called charity; so I was very respectful and quiet, and went away again with a couple of books, after asking leave to call again for more. "Sometimes I think the poor lady must have seen through it all; but she made no sign, but kept it up till one day, surprised that I had not seen the daughter for a week, I called to find her kneeling by the side of the couch; for the furriers had lost one of their assistants, and the poor lady had gone to a happier home. "This all seems as if I were talking about how I did this, and how I did that; but being so mixed up with it as I was, I can't tell it all and leave myself out. The poor lady was laid to her rest, and after a deal of persuasion, her daughter consented to come and stay with us--to help make up a catalogue of my books, for until I thought of that, she would not hear of it. And in the long winter evenings I got to know a good deal about her and her family; for the father had been a pensioned officer of the Indian army, who had died three years before, leaving his widow and child to exist on the sale of their furniture, and such money as they could earn by their needles. "But I learned, too, that there was some one expected home from somewhere; and he came one day, to be almost angry, at first, to find her in such condition; but only to make us uncomfortable afterwards with his thanks for the little we had done.