From two to three months passed on. One windy March day, Mrs. Knox sat alone in the garden-room, worrying over her money matters. The table, drawn near the fire, was strewed with bills and tradesmen's books; the sun shone on the closed glass-doors. Mrs. Knox's affairs had been getting into an extremely hopeless condition. It seemed, by the accumulation of present debts, that Arnold's money must have paid for everything. Her own income, which came in quarterly, appeared to dwindle away, she knew not how or where. A piteous appeal had gone up a week ago to Arnold, saying she should be in prison unless he assisted her, for the creditors were threatening to take steps. Arnold's answer, delivered this morning, was a fifty-pound note enclosed in a very plain letter. It had inconvenienced him to send the money, he said, and he begged her fully to understand that it was the _last_ he should ever send. So there sat Mrs. Knox before the table in an old dressing-gown, and her black hair more dishevelled than a mop. The bills, oceans of them, and the fifty-pound note lay in a heap together. Master Dicky had been cutting animals out of a picture-book, leaving the scraps on the cloth and the old carpet. Lotty had distributed there a few sets of dolls' clothes. Gerty had been tearing up a newspaper for a kite-tail. The fifty pounds would pay about a third of the debts, and Mrs. Knox was trying to apportion a sum to each of them accordingly. It bothered her finely, for she was no accountant. She could manage to add up without making very many mistakes; but when it came to subtraction, her brain went into a hopeless maze. Janet might have done it, but Mrs. Knox was furious with Janet and would not ask her. Ill-treated, over-worked, Janet had plucked up courage to give notice, and was looking out for a situation in Lefford. Just now, Janet was in the kitchen, ironing Dick's frilled collars. "Take fifty-three from fourteen, and how much _does_ remain?" groaned Mrs. Knox over the shillings. At that moment there was a sound of carriage-wheels, and a tremendous ring at the door. Sally darted in. "Oh, ma'am, it's my Lady Jenkins! I knew her carriage at a distance. It have got red wheels!" "Oh, my goodness!" cried Mrs. Knox, starting up. "Don't open the door yet, Sally: let me get upstairs first. Her ladyship's come to take me a drive, I suppose. Go and call Miss Carey--or stay, I'll go to her." Mrs. Knox opened one of the glass-doors, and whisked round to the kitchen. She bade Janet leave the ironing and go to do her books and bills: hastily explaining that she wanted to know how far fifty pounds would go towards paying a fair proportion off each debt. Janet was to make it all out in figures. "Be sure and take care of the note--I've left it somewhere," called back Mrs. Knox as she escaped to the stairs in hurry and confusion; for my Lady Jenkins's footman was working both bell and knocker alarmingly.