m and the cleanliness of
linen sheets.

Supperless she lay there, by turn welcoming and rejecting the pictures
which appeared on the dark wall of her mind, and when Helen knocked on
the door she was not bidden to enter.

"Don't you want anything to eat?" she called.

"No."

"What's the matter?"

"I--feel sick."

"Then mayn't I come in and look after you?" Helen asked in a voice
which impelled Miriam to bark an angry negative.

It was Helen, who liked to help people, to whom this thing should have
happened, yet Miriam possessed her experience jealously; it had broken
into the monotony of life and to that extent she was grateful.

"And I must be very kind to George," she decided before she went to
sleep.

She dropped her white eyelids the next morning when John gave the news
of the old man's death, for she did not want to betray her knowledge.

"Oh!" Helen said, and Rupert remarked lightly and watchfully that
Zebedee would now be less often on the moor.

"There's still the funeral," Helen said oddly.

"And let's hope they'll bury him soon," John added, and so finished with
old Halkett.

Helen was still thoughtful. "Perhaps we ought to go and be nice to
George. There won't be anything we can do, but we might ask him if there
is."

"The less you have to do with George--" John began, and Miriam
interrupted him, clicking her tongue.

"Helen, Helen, haven't you heard about George and Lily Brent? A dreadful
story. Ask John."

"If you're not careful," he said menacingly, "I'll do what she did to
him."

"No, no, you won't, Johnny; for, in spite of everything, you're a little
gentleman."

"Oh, do be quiet, you two! Rupert's trying to say something."

"Send a note of condolence to George," he advised, "and I'll go to the
funeral. It's no good asking John to do it. He wouldn't shine. Heavens!
it's late, and I haven't cleaned the boots!"

The boys went about their business and left the girls to theirs.

"I don't think a note is enough for George," Helen said as she rolled up
her sleeves. "A man without a mother or a father, and only a Mrs.
Biggs!"

"H'm," Miriam commented. "Except for Mrs. Biggs, I don't know that he's
to be pitied. Still, I'm quite willing to be agreeable, unless you mean
to go and knock at the farm door?"

"No. Couldn't we catch him somewhere!"

"Yes," Miriam said too promptly. She made a cautious pause. "He won't be
riding on the moor today, because there'll be undertakers and thi