After that, in the weeks that followed, there had been the cruel carrying into effect of the news. There had been much wearisome talk. Amongst it Nell remembered one thing that had been clear and definite at once. That was Denis’s determination to do some sort of work. Mr. O’Brien wished him to study shorthand and type-writing, with a literary future in view. But Denis refused, beyond agreeing to study them in his spare time. For the rest he intended to do work that would have remuneration attached to it. Already he was fired with hope and ambition to turn the strangers from their home. Mr. O’Brien secured him a position as a clerk in a London bank, the manager of which had been a schoolfellow of his. Nell cried miserably because she wasn’t a boy. Denis shook her, and painted, in glowing colours, the great academy picture that in a few years’ time was to win her fame and fortune. But two or three years seemed such an interminable time that, mostly, her mind refused to grasp the thought. There had been much discussion as to where they should stay while their parents were away. They were singularly destitute of relations. They had some cousins in America, and an aunt by marriage in London. They had never seen the aunt; but she happened to live near the bank where Denis had found employment. She had lately lost her mother, and with her the annuity that had helped to pay the rent of the house. She wrote suggesting that they should come to her. After much worried discussion it was settled that they should live with her for the time. Mr. O’Brien paid a small sum for their maintenance in advance, and they faced the thought of a house in a street in London.