keep step with Mr. Trinder's shambling
footsteps, as he walked between the girls with a hot perplexed face,
and still muttering to himself at intervals.

"It is all in confidence," repeated Phillis, in the same calm voice.

"And you are actually serious? you are not joking?"

"Do your clients generally joke when they are ruined?" returned
Phillis, with natural exasperation. "Do you think Nan and I are in
such excellent spirits that we could originate such a piece of
drollery? Excuse me, Mr. Trinder, but I must say I do not think your
remark quite well timed." And Phillis turned away with a little
dignity.

"No, no! now you are put out, and no wonder!" returned Mr. Trinder,
soothingly; and he stood quite still on the gravel path, and fixed his
keen little eyes on the two young creatures before him,--Nan, with her
pale cheeks and sad eyes, and Phillis, alert, irritated, full of
repressed energy. "Dear, dear! what a pity!" groaned the old man; "two
such bonnie lasses and to think a little management and listening to
my advice would have kept the house over your heads, if only your
mother would have hearkened to me!"

"It is too late for all that now, Mr. Trinder," replied Phillis,
impatiently: "isn't it waste of time crying over spilt milk when we
must be taking our goods to market? We must make the best of our
little commodities," sighed the girl. "If we were only clever and
accomplished, we might do better; but now----" and Phillis left her
sentence unfinished, which was a way she had, and which people thought
very telling.

"But, my dear young lady, with all your advantages, and----" Here
Phillis interrupted him rather brusquely.

"What advantages? do you mean we had a governess? Well, we had three,
one after the other; and they were none of them likely to turn out
first-rate pupils. Oh, we are well enough, compared to other girls: if
we had not to earn our own living, we should not be so much amiss.
But, Nan, why don't you speak? why do you leave me all the hard work?
Did you not tell us last night that you were not fit for a
governess?"

Nan felt rather ashamed of her silence after this. It was true that
she was leaving all the onus of their plan on Phillis, and it was
certainly time for her to come to her rescue. So she quietly but
rather shyly endorsed her sister's speech, and assured Mr. Trinder
that they had carefully considered the matter from every point of
view, and, though it was a very poor prospe