forts; but
she sighed as she worked, and Mollie sang, and that was the difference
between them.

"Don't make such a noise, Mollie; you make my head ache. Another time,
I wish you would do your mending when I do mine, and then we should get
a chance of a rest. Just to-day, too, when the girls are out! I hate a
large family, where there is never any privacy or repose. I wish the
pater could afford to send the boys to a boarding-school. It would be
the making of them, and such a blessing to us."

Mollie pursed her lips disapprovingly.

"I'd miss them horribly. They are naughty, of course, and noisy and
tiresome, and make no end of work, but that's the nature of boys; on the
other hand, they are full of fun and good-humour, if you take them the
right way. And they are affectionate little ruffians, too; and so good-
looking. I'm proud of them on Sundays, in their Eton suits."

"But there's only one Sunday, and six long days of shabbiness and
patches! Bruce ought to have a new school suit; the one he is wearing
has descended from the other two, and is disgracefully shabby. I spoke
to mother about it to-day, and she said she had intended to buy one this
month, but business was bad, and there was the coal bill to pay. The
old story! Business always _is_ bad, and the coal bill is ever with
us!"

Mollie crinkled her brows, and for a fraction of a second her face
clouded.

"There's no hope for me, then! I was going to plead for an extra
sovereign to carry me to the end of the quarter, for I've spent my last
cent, and there are one or two absolute necessities which I shall have
to get by hook or by crook, or stay in bed until the next allowance is
due. Well; something will turn up, I suppose! It's always the darkest
the hour before the dawn, and, financially speaking, it's pitch black at
the present moment. Let's pretend Uncle Bernard suddenly appeared upon
the scene, and presented us each with a handsome cheque."

"I'm tired of Uncle Bernard! Ever since I was a child I have heard
about him and his eccentricities, and his house, and his wealth, and
that we were his nearest relatives, and that some day he would surely
remember us, and break his silence; but he never has, so now I look upon
him as a sort of mythological figure who has no real existence. If he
cared anything about us he would have written long ago. I expect he has
forgotten our very existence, and left all his money to charities."

"I expe