I felt very, very sad when he said this. I seemed to guess in advance that a great strain and trial was about to be put upon me. My father looked at me, and then he looked away. Again he took up some great, full bells of heather and crushed them in his hand; he threw them away and turned and faced me. "There! The worst is out. I have got to stay with her ladyship." "Father!" "Yes. I can't get away from it, Heather child. I can't live on nothing, nor, my little girl, can you. We are both dependent on Lady Helen for our daily bread." "I am not--I won't be," I said. "But you are," he answered, "and you must be; that's just it. You can't get away from it. She holds the purse. Do you think she will unfasten those purse strings to give you and me an allowance to live away from her?" "But we can live on so little," I said; "and I can work. I should love to work." "Well, now, Heather," said my father, "you are no fool." "I hope I am not," I said. "You're a very wise girl for your age." "I hope so," I replied. "I have watched you, and I know you are wise for your age--very. Being so, therefore, what can you do to earn a living? Just tell me." I sat very quiet and still. I thought over my different accomplishments. I could play a little, I could sing a little; I had a smattering of French--a very slight smattering--and I was fond of good English books, history books, and books of travel, and I adored books of adventure, and I could recite a good many pieces from our best poets. But all these things did not form much of a cargo to take on board my ship of life. My father kept looking at me, with that whimsical light in his blue eyes. "Eh, little woman? Suppose I take you at your word, how do you propose to support yourself and me? There would be, first of all, our lodgings. We might go to Plymouth, or some other place, not too dear. We might find rooms--kind of country cottage rooms--by the sea, and pay, say, six shillings a week each. It is very unlikely we'd get them for that, but I really want to bring you down as lightly as possible. Well, six shillings a week for you and six shillings for me means twelve shillings, and that would mean, probably, a tiny, tiny sitting-room, and two of the wee-est bedrooms in all the world. Still, it might be done for the price of twelve shillings a week. There would be extras, of course--landladies greatly live by extras--and we should have to put them down, counting coal and light, one part of the year with another, at about three shillings a week, which mounts up, our lodging and our light and coal, to fifteen shillings a week.