le black frock out of her laborious hands. "You
have been up all night, Dr Edward," she said, with a certain tenderness,
looking at his agitated face; "you are tired out and sick at the heart.
I know it makes you say things you would not say; but after all, you
know, except poor Fred, whom none of you think of, everything is the
very same. I cannot make it different--nothing can make it different.
There is Susan plain enough to be seen--and there are the children.
Sometimes it has come into my mind," said Nettie, "that as I shall never
be able to afford a _very_ good education for the children, it would be
better to take them out to the colony again, where they might get on
better than here. But it is a dreadful long voyage; and we have no near
friends there, or anywhere else: and," concluded the steadfast creature,
who had dropped these last words from her lips sentence by sentence,
as if eager to impress upon her own mind the arguments against that
proceeding--"and," said Nettie, with wistful pathetic honesty, not able
to deny the real cause of the reluctance altogether, "I don't seem to
have the heart for it now."

Dr Rider started up from his chair. He went to Nettie's side with a
sudden thrill of agitation and passion. He clasped the hand with which
Nettie was smoothing out that little frock, and crushed the delicate
fingers in his inconsiderate grasp. "Nettie! if you must carry them
always upon your shoulders, cannot we do it together, at least?" cried
the doctor, carried away beyond every boundary of sense or prudence. He
got down on his knees beside the table, not kneeling to her, but only
compelling her attention--demanding to see the answer of her eyes, the
quiver of her mouth. For that moment Nettie's defences too fell before
this unlooked-for outburst of a love that had forgotten prudence. Her
mouth quivered, her eyes filled. If it were possible--if it were only
possible!---- They had both forgotten the spectators who gazed with
curious eyes, all unaware how deeply their own fate was involved; and
that fate was still trembling in the breathless interval, when a vulgar
finger touched those delicate balances of possibility, and the crisis
was over, perhaps never to return.

"Nettie!" cried Mrs Fred, "if Edward Rider has no respect for me, nor
for my poor Fred--my poor, dear, injured husband, that helped to bring
him up, and gave up his practice to him, and died, as I might say, by
his neglect--Nettie! how can