miserable forever?" And here
Dulce broke into actual sobs; for was she not the petted darling? and
had she not had a life so gilded by sunshine that she had never seen
the dark edge of a single cloud? So that even Nan forgot Dick for a
moment, and looked at her young sister pityingly; but Phillis
interposed with bracing severity:

"Don't talk such nonsense, Dulce. Of course we must eat to live, and
of course we must have clothes to wear. Aren't Nan and I thinking
ourselves into headaches by trying to contrive how even the crusts you
so despise are to be bought?" which was hardly true as far as Nan was
concerned, for she blushed guiltily over this telling point in
Phillis's eloquence. "It only upsets mother to talk like this." And
then she touched the coals skilfully, till they spluttered and blazed
into fury. "There is the Friary, you know," she continued, looking
calmly round on them, as though she felt herself full of resources.
"If Dulce chooses to make herself miserable about the crusts, we have,
at least, a roof to shelter us."

"I forgot the Friary," murmured Nan, looking at her sister with
admiration; and, though Mrs. Challoner said nothing, she started a
little as though she had forgotten it too. But Dulce was not to be
comforted.

"That horrid, dismal, pokey old cottage!" she returned, with a shrill
rendering of each adjective. "You would have us go and live in that
damp, musty, fusty place?"

Phillis gave a succession of quick little nods.

"I don't think it particularly dismal, or Nan either," she returned,
in her brisk way. Phillis always answered for Nan, and was never
contradicted. "It is not dear Glen Cottage, of course, but we could
not begin munching our crusts here," she continued, with a certain
grim humor. Things were apparently at their worst; but at least
she,--Phillis,--the clever one, as she had heard herself called, would
do her best to keep the heads of the little family above water. "It is
a nice little place enough if we were only humble enough to see it;
and it is not damp, and it is our own," running up the advantages as
well as she could.

"The Friary!" commented her mother, in some surprise: "to think of
that queer old cottage coming into your head! And it so seldom lets.
And people say it is dear at forty pounds a year; and it is so dull
that they do not care to stay."

"Never mind all that, mammy," returned Phillis, with a grave
business-like face. "A cottage, rent-free, that