Meantime, it can scarcely be said that the Macdonald fortunes improved. It is true that the fever-stricken child recovered, and was sent away to a superior convalescent home at the seaside. It is true that one or two fresh boarders came, and that there were hopes that the family would be able to weather the storm, supposing, that is, that they were able to tide over the next few months. Still, in London, it is not easy to tide over a few months when your resources have been drained, and your income has been sorely diminished. There were bills for this and that, claims for that and the other, and these came in with great rapidity and with pressing demands for payment. Mrs. Macdonald pitied herself more than ever; her tones, as she recalled the virtues of her past life, were more tragic; her debit and credit account with the Almighty she showed to be clearly falsified. Never was so good a woman so abominably used of Providence and humanity alike. She wept copiously over her deservings, and railed furiously against her fate. Poor Mrs. Macdonald! For many a weary year she had toiled to the best of her ability, and she had done her duty by her children according to her lights, which were pitiably dim, "The Lord must indeed love me," she remarked, with bitterest irony, one day, when a mysterious visitor had put a gruesome paper into her unwilling hands. "It is but the beginning of the end, Nancy," she said resignedly, "the beginning of the end. I haven’t a sovereign in the house, and how I am to pay nine pounds seventeen and fourpence is beyond me altogether. It won’t last long; we shall have the roof of the workhouse over our heads soon. We can’t go on like this. Where’s the money to come from?" And that, of course, Nancy knew no more than her mother. "Could not we sell something?" she said, looking round their shabby little sitting-room, where all that was worst in the house was gathered together because it was only used by themselves. "Couldn’t we sell something?" "I might sell my cameo brooch," said Mrs. Macdonald, with a huge sigh. "It was the last present your poor father ever gave me." "And I don’t suppose it would fetch anything like nine pounds seventeen and fourpence," said Nancy doubtfully. "Your father paid a great deal for it," returned Mrs. Macdonald, "but when one has to sell, it’s different to buying. One gives one’s things away." As a matter of fact, the late Mr. Macdonald had given fifty shillings for the cameo brooch in question, having bought it in a pawnshop in the Strand; but neither Mrs. Macdonald nor Nancy were aware of that fact. "Dear Mother," said Nancy, "I would not worry. You have still a fortnight before you need settle it one way or the other. A great many things may turn up in a fortnight." "Not a ten pound note," said Mrs. Macdonald, with an air of conviction.