_“If you should be dismissed from employment, communicate with Sir Pompey Malahide’s butler, who will see to it that you do not suffer. Don’t forget to call him my lord. Ecod, you sang like a damned canary.”_ CHAPTER XLV _Wherein a Poet burns his Verse to keep his Feet Warm_ In the waning of a bleak March day, Betty walked briskly home to her rooms. It was the eve of her marriage. Noll and she were to go to Paris straight from the ceremony. Betty had the tickets for the journey in her pocket. Horace had secured them lodgings. When the girl had entered the house, mounting the stairs to her attic, she felt a pang. She was going to a glorious life, and leaving the old home to increasing dinginess--it would become shabbier and more shabby; whilst she--stepped it blithely to the seven heavens. And the little faded Miss Flora! Who was to tend her?... The mirth went out of her heart. Someone must always suffer. She stopped at the door, and knocked. She had some flowers at her belt--she would leave them for the little lady--she must see her again before she went. More---- She must break the tidings. She knocked again--the knock of indecision. Not a sound. She opened the door gently, and entered. In the room, in her old-world taffeta-covered chair, before the fire, very still, sat Miss Flora Jennyns; and the girl knew by the quick instinct within her that Death waited at the window. About the narrow shoulders was drawn the India shawl, the weary hand holding the overlapping ends at the withered throat; and on the third finger of the hand was the ring of splendid jewels that sparkled in paint in the picture beyond her. Here was the picture--grown old--vanishing. And the old shoe that peeped from the crumpled threadbare skirts upon the quaint old wool-worked footstool--ah, how shabby! worn with careful brushings--of what gentle uncomplaining penury were these things not sign and emblem! So she sat, fading away in the winter’s light, her dying eyes on the fire’s warmth, and her lips smiling on her little triumphs of long ago--a little withered roseleaf, blown across the footlights of the world’s rude theatre. Betty ran to her, knelt down beside her, and touched the pale white hand that lay upon the chair’s arm: “Miss Flora!” she whispered in a strange wonder and alarm. “Mother of God!” the old lady’s lips murmured--“the child is come!” She smiled; put out her slender bloodless fingers, and placed them upon the girl’s fresh brown hair: “Dear sweet heart!” said she--“in my love for thee, and in thy gentleness to me, I have known something of motherhood.... I have not--been--wholly--barren.” Betty took the bloodless hand between hers, kissed it and chafed it. It was very cold. She could not speak for tears. The old eyes smiled upon the girl. After a while the dying poetess added: “Nor have I been wholly alone.” She sighed; and, with a smile, she died.