"O Dan!" exclaimed Susan, tears coming to her eyes at his brave confident manner, "if it hadn't been for me you wouldn't have been a cripple, and your poor legs might have been of some use to you." "They will be of more use to me perhaps than if they were sound, Susey," said Dan cheerfully, "if I can make something out of the scheme I have got in my head--and I think I can. Let us talk sensibly. Now that poor dear mother's gone, we must all do something. I intend to commence doing something to-morrow." "What, dear Dan?" asked Susan. "You will see. What I should like is that we should all live together. Perhaps not just now, Susey, but by and by. What do you say to that, Susey?" Susan thought of Basil and Minnie Kindred, and felt that it would be impossible for her to leave them. "It would be very good," she said, "but we can talk of that by and by, as you say." "Very well. The first thing, then, we have to consider is bread-and-butter. Bread-and-butter," he repeated, in reply to their questioning looks. "We must have it, and we must earn it." Susan nodded gravely, and said, "Ellen had better learn to be a dressmaker." Ellen looked up with joyful gratitude. "Oh, how good of you, Susey!" she exclaimed. "Then I could earn money. I wouldn't mind how hard I should have to work." "It is a capital idea," said Dan, taking Susan's hand. "The best thing you can do, Susey, is to bring some of your work here every day for a couple of hours, and let Ellen help you--she will soon learn." "That I will," said Ellen in a voice of quiet gladness. These young people, you see, were not entirely unhappy. "I wonder where Joshua is," remarked Ellen during the evening. "Ah, where?" sighed Dan. "But wherever he is, he is doing his duty, and we will do ours. How happy we all were that night at Mr. Meddler's What a beautiful day that was! Like a dream! Hark! There is the church-bell striking nine o'clock." They listened in silence. "That is like a wedding-bell. Now the other church is striking--how solemn it sounds--like a funeral-bell." The tears came to their eyes when Dan inadvertently made the last remark. They did not speak for a long time after that, and then Dan said,-- "I feel now just as I felt the day after Jo went away." They sat up talking until eleven o'clock. They spoke in low tones, and they sat in the dark. "Don't you miss mother's step, Dan?" asked Susan. "How strange it is to know that she is not in the house!" said Dan. "Hush!" There was a step outside the door; it was the drunken step of their father, who stumbled through the passage and up the stairs, shedding tears of Gin as he staggered to bed, bemoaning the death of his wife. They listened with feelings of grief and fear until they heard his bedroom-door shut, and then turned to each other with deeper sighs. Shame for the living was more grievous to bear than sorrow for the dead. CHAPTER XII. DAN ENTERS INTO BUSINESS.