d for help, there was the attendance on the
querulous, sick, thoughtless mother, always complaining of her fate and
the fact that a lady should be brought down to such a life. There was
Percy to combat when he talked of throwing up his situation,
"appointment" he called it--the children--the little sisters--to teach,
and, above all, the battle to fight of finding money, and lowering her
pride to accept help from relatives who gave grudgingly when unwillingly
appealed to.

Mr Geringer had thoughtfully placed money in her hands twice.

"The result of a little speculation in which I was engaged with poor
Thorne, my dear child," he said; but that failed fast, and as Hazel
toiled on at her task of giving lessons to three or four pupils she had
got together, she looked blankly forward at the future, and wondered
what they all would do.

It was nearly six months since her father's death, and she could not
conceal the fact from herself that they were rapidly going down-hill.
Instead of Percy being a help, he was an expense; and everything
depended upon her. Under the circumstances, the only prospect open to
her was to start a school; but while the grass was growing the steed was
starving, and she used to look with envy at the smart well-dressed
mistress of the national school hard by, with her troop of girls who
came pouring out at noon; and at last came like an inspiration the
idea--why should not she get a post as mistress?

To think was to act, and she boldly called on the mistress, who sent her
away terribly dejected, with the information that at least a year's
training in the system, however well educated the would-be teacher might
be, was absolutely necessary. Hazel, however, obtained a good deal of
information as well, ready to ponder over--how she might either go to
Whitelands or to Smith Square, Westminster; what would be the cost; the
probabilities of her obtaining a school afterwards; the salary;
etcetera, etcetera.

She went back in despair, for how could the money be obtained to pay her
expenses and keep house as well, while the idea of obtaining a school at
the end of a year's training, with a certain salary and a comfortable
home, seemed so Eden-like a prospect that the difficulties to be
surmounted appeared to grow.

Like all other difficulties, however, they began to shrink when boldly
attacked. Hazel wrote to two or three relatives, as a forlorn hope, and
they who had before only doled out a few pou