Always before when they had been presented with any financial difficulty they had sold a house at Potsham, for the reduction of their private income by twenty or thirty pounds had seemed no great matter. But they had already sold five houses, and the loss of one hundred and fifty pounds a year had, as Francis now pointed out, played a considerable part in bringing them to their present quandary. He was loth to sacrifice another house and more income, and nervously proposed that they should raise the required sum by selling some of their valuable china and perhaps a piece or two of Martha's jewellery. She hardly ever wore her jewellery, but she loved to hoard it, and whenever she was particularly pleased with her women friends she used to reward them by displaying the contents of her treasure-drawers, jewels, old lace, silks and brocades and fans, acquired and inherited--things valuable and trumpery all lying higgledy-piggledy. Her husband's suggestion acted like salt rubbed into the wounds occasioned by his statement of fact. She asked why she should always be the sufferer for the delinquencies of her family, and almost persuaded herself that she was their scapegoat. She went back over the years and raked over the ashes of old resentments and grievances, even going so far as to disinter the sacrifice of her carriage at St. Withans. "The fact remains," said Francis, "that we owe a large sum of money. I am a clergyman, and my house should be free of the sordid troubles that beset the laity. It is not free of them and I am ashamed." "Very well, then," said Martha, "Let us sell everything, spend everything--the girls will do that easily enough--and then go into the workhouse." "Please be reasonable," rejoined Francis. "We must pay our debts and reduce our expenditure. If necessary, the girls must go out and earn what they can." "The girls!" "There is no shame in honest work, whatever it may be." "But they will _never_ marry if they work." "Half the women I marry are working women." "I won't discuss it. You have never been the same since we came to this hateful place." "I was thinking chiefly of Mary. She could teach music. And Annette has had a better education than the others. She could . . ." "What?" "She could obtain a situation as a governess." "A governess! Annette! A governess!"