l worries.

Poor woman! she had, indeed, been worried enough to have shaken the
strongest; and, having nothing stolid in her nature, it pressed upon
her.

After awhile these attacks seemed to diminish, and Amaryllis hoped that
nothing would come of it, but it left her in a state of extreme anxiety
lest some fresh trouble should happen to renew the strain.

When she thought of her mother she could not draw--the sound of her
shuffling, nervous footstep on the landing or the path outside under the
window stopped her at once. These things disheartened her a thousand
times more than the returned sketches the postman was always bringing.

On butter-making mornings, once a week, there was always a great to-do;
Mrs. Iden, like nervous people, was cross and peevish when she was
exceptionally busy, and clapper-clawed Iden to some purpose. It chanced
that Amaryllis one day was just opening an envelope and taking out a
returned drawing, when Iden entered, angry and fresh from Mrs. Iden's
tongue, and, seeing the letter, began to growl:--

"Better drow that there fool stuff in the vire, and zee if you can't
help your mother. Better do zummat to be some use on. Pity as you wasn't
a boy chap to go out and yarn summat. Humph! humph!" growl, mutter,
growl. "Drow" was local for throw, "summat" for something, "yarn" for
earn. Unless I give you a vocabulary you may not be able to follow him.

The contemptuous allusion to her sketches as fool stuff, contrasted with
the benefit and advantage of earning something--something real and
solid--hit the artist very hard. That was the thought that troubled her
so much, and paralysed her imagination. They were unsaleable--she saw
the worthlessness of them far more than Iden. They were less in value
than the paper on which they were traced; fool stuff, fit for the fire
only.

That was the very thought that troubled her so, and Iden hit the nail
home with his rude speech. That was the material view; unless a thing be
material, or will fetch something material, it is good for the fire
only.

So it came about that the portfolio was pushed aside, and dust gathered
on it, and on the pencils, and the india-rubber, and in the little box
of vine charcoal. Amaryllis having arranged her violets in the tumbler
of water in the window niche, sat down at the table and leant her head
on her hand, and tried to think what she could do, as she had thought
these many, many days.

The drawings were so unreal, a