The summer was now past, and the winter was a severe one. Liverpool is a very cold place, too, and Janet felt it herself, though she did not actually suffer in health. But the children caught cold again and again. They would creep back to their rather dreary home when school was over, with their little overcoats unbuttoned, and their warm comforters forgotten. After a time, Janet succeeded in teaching Frank that it was his duty to take care of Fred, and of himself too, because it made poor "muddie" so wretched to see them ill. From that time, Frank remembered; and it was touching to see the tender, protecting care he took of little Fred, who really suffered far less from cold than did Frank himself. Frank grew tall and thin and white, but he never complained, for "poor muddie would be sorry, if she knew how his bones pained him." Looking back upon that time in Liverpool, it always seemed to Janet very long, yet it really lasted but a few months. She heard regularly from her husband, and he wrote in good spirits. He had set out to join Gilbert Gray, but, having reached a town called New Durham, in British Columbia, he fell in with an acquaintance who was in business there, and who had put him up to one or two very good things; he would soon be quite independent. In sending him that money she had, he thought, laid the foundation of a fine fortune; but he would send her the passage-money very soon now. All this made Janet uneasy, she knew not why. She felt a little uneasy, too, about grandma, as Mrs. Rayburn had for years been called in the old Gatehouse, for she had never heard from her since they parted, though she had written to her. However, in the spring she had a letter from her. "Kelmersdale Castle, near Rugeley. "MY DEAR JANET, "I am afraid you are thinking me very unkind, getting letters from you and never writing to you; but you will understand how this happened, when I tell you how I have been knocked about. I am glad you have found work that suits you, but, in your place, I would have gone after Fred at once. I love him like a mother, but, after what happened, I think him weak, and I hardly expect now that you will ever get out to him. You ought to have left the children in England and gone after Fred. No risk in leaving them for a time; any one would be kind to those darlings. But I suppose it is too late now, as you parted with the money.