"In any case, I would not have gone there again," Deleah said. "The girls are always talking about who their fathers are, and looking down on each other. Not but what there were some upon whose fathers I also looked down. The Clarks--the wholesale shoe-makers--you could hardly call them _professional_, could you? But now--oh, what nonsense it all seems now!" The education of Franky had been carried on hitherto by Bessie. In a lamentably desultory fashion it is true; but now that, for economy's sake, they had restricted themselves to a fire in only one sitting-room the poor child's tuition had to be abandoned. It would have been impossible to live within the four walls wherein the elder daughter and the younger son fought through the difficulties of imparting and acquiring knowledge. Either Franky, on his back, on the floor, was screaming and dangerously waving his legs, or an infuriate Bessie was chasing him round the table. The spelling-book was more often used as a weapon of attack than a primer, and Bessie's voice screaming out the information that C A T spelt Cat could be heard in the street. Economies in coal, economies in every direction they had to practise. Money, where it had been so plentiful was all at once painfully scarce; credit, which had seemed unlimited, there was none. George Boult, taking things in hand, and trying to bring some order out of chaos, handed over weekly to Mrs. Day two pounds for housekeeping. The change from lavishness to penury bewildered the poor woman, and the change from a table loaded with good things to one that was nearly bare was not skilfully made. For a time, until experience taught her, things they could have done without she continued to buy, and that which was really necessary they went without. And that allowance, poor as it seemed to her, could not go on for long. It was by no means certain that enough legally remained to them to repay Mr. Boult for these disbursements. If they had been willing to live upon his means he was not at all a generous man; he did not encourage them to expect pecuniary help from him. "What do you advise? Have you no plan? What are we all to do?" Mrs. Day asked of her husband. "You must hang on till I come out. If we're lucky it will only be a matter of a few months." "But even for a few months, William, what are we to do?" "You must work," William said. "Earn something. It will be a change for you. I've kept the lot of you in idleness till now. Now you'll learn what it is to work. It won't do you any harm." "All that is so easy to say. But what work are we to do? Where are we to work? I cannot see that we shall have a roof over our heads."