"We do indeed. Oh, it is different--so different from what I expected!" faltered poor, tired Philippa, with a sob; and then of a sudden her fears and dreads caught her in a grip from which there was no escape. She looked round the strange, unlovely room, through the bare window at the great city, lurid and threatening in the light of many lamps, and trembled at the thought of what she had done. She had been as a mother to these children, and she had brought them away from their peaceful home to face a thousand trials, a thousand difficulties: Stephen, constitutionally despondent, to be burdened with fresh responsibilities; the girls, ardent and credulous, to be ready prey for unscrupulous acquaintances; Barney, pining for mischief, to a swift and certain ruin! Her face blanched; she held out her hands to her sister with a gesture of terrified appeal. "Madge, Madge, I'm frightened! Suppose it is all a mistake! Suppose we fail, and all the money goes, and we are left penniless and alone in this great wilderness! I have read of it so often: people come up hoping to make their fortunes, and the time passes, and they move into smaller and smaller rooms--and no work comes--and they fall ill. It is my doing! I persuaded Stephen. Oh Madge, if it's all a mistake, you will believe I did it for the best, won't you? I was not thinking of myself. It would have been easier for me to stay where we were. You will not blame me if the money goes and there is none left? Promise that you will never blame me." But Madge lay back in her chair and folded her arms out of reach of the trembling hands. "I will, though!" she replied bluntly. "I'll make an awful row; and quite right, too, for it _will_ be your fault. If you lose heart the very first night, and fall to crying and groaning, how do you expect to get on? If _you_ get low in your mind, Steve will be indigo, and Hope and Theo will have no spirit left in them. As for me, I'm not _going_ to fail, nor fall ill, nor starve, nor throw myself over London Bridge, nor anything else interesting or melodramatic I've always longed to come up to town, and now that I am here I am going to enjoy myself in the best way I can. It is ripping to work hard when you feel you are getting on, and a little taste of success now and then will be a wonderful fillip. There must be some compensations for being poor, and I mean to find them out, and see if I can't get as much fun for sixpence as Avice Loftus does for a sovereign." "I--I believe you will," said Philippa, with a feeble laugh. "You mustn't think me a coward, Madge; I could be brave for myself; but it is the awful feeling of responsibility that weighs upon me. All this day I have been saying to myself, `Now we are here. What is the next step? What ought we to do next?'" "Go to bed, I should say. You look as if you needed it," came the curt rejoinder; and at that Philippa was obliged to laugh outright.