"Then, my dear little Heather, there comes that important thing, food, for the bravest of all little girls would get very hungry at times, and if she didn't get hungry she wouldn't be worth her salt. There'd be your breakfast, my dear, and my breakfast, and your snack in the middle of the day, and your tea in the afternoon, and your dinner in the evening; and I don't think the shopkeepers would give us bread, and butter, and milk, and beef, and mutton, and vegetables, and all those sort of things for nothing--I have an impression that they wouldn't. Of course I may be wrong, but that is my impression, and I have a pretty good knowledge of the world. I don't think, dear, that even at starvation price we could be fed under something like another fifteen shillings to a pound a week. Now, my little Heather, how are you to earn, say, one pound fifteen shillings a week--to say nothing of the expense of note-paper, and stamps, and envelopes, and dress?" "Oh, I have heaps of dress," I said. "There are a great many dresses of mine at the house in London." "Which have been supplied to you by Lady Helen. I don't really know, if we made this great severance from her, whether we should have any right to take those dresses from her or not--I am inclined to think not, if you ask me. However, suppose you don't want dress for the time being, at least you will want shoe leather, and gloves, and trifles of that sort. My dear, we can't put down our living, between us, however hard we try, at less than two pounds a week, and that means over a hundred pounds a year. Now, Heather child, I have nothing a year--nothing!" He stretched out both his arms as he spoke. "Oh, yes; I am supposed to be one of the richest of old men. I can drive in my motor-car, and I can have a horse, and I can go here, there, and everywhere. I can live in the softest rooms, and I can eat the most dainty food, and I can curse luxury in my heart as you curse it in yours; but I haven't a penny piece to get away from it--not a penny piece; and, as far as I can tell, no more have you." "Couldn't we live here with Aunt Penelope?" I said. My voice was very weak and faint. A good deal of my courage was being taken out of me. "As if we would, Heather! Think how that brave woman supported you during the long years when I was in prison, and could not earn a halfpenny! No, no, Heather; no, no! It was partly to relieve your aunt that I married her ladyship, and, Heather child, I can't get away from her now--I can't--and I am greatly afraid you can't either." "But she won't have me," I said; "she'll have you back, of course, but not me; and, father, darling, I _can't_ go back!"