than my mother. She was brought up in the purple, a maid to brush
her hair and tie her shoestrings, but for the last six years she
has lived in a four-roomed cottage, and has done the family
washing."

"Oh, how hard for her!" exclaimed Katherine.

"It was hard, poor Mother!" Jervis said, and his voice grew so
tender that the listener understood the previous hardness must have
been meant for someone else. He was silent for some time after
that, and, pulling slowly up the river, kept his eyes fixed on the
water which was gliding past.

Katherine sat with her gaze fixed on the treetops, whilst her
fancies were busy with the poor lady who had fallen from the luxury
of having a lady's maid to doing the work of a washerwoman.

"I was to have been a doctor," Jervis said abruptly, taking up the
talk just where he had dropped it. "We were very poor, so I had
worked my way on scholarships and that sort of thing. I was very
keen on study, for I meant to make a name for myself. I believe I
should have done too, but----"

He broke off suddenly, and, after a pause, Katherine ventured
gently: "Don't you think it is the 'buts' which really make us live
to some purpose?"

"At least they make a mighty difference in our outlook," he
admitted with a smile. "The particular 'but' which stopped my
medical studies, and drove me into the first situation where I
could earn money was the death of my father, and the consequent
cessation of the income which had been his allowance under his
grandfather's will. We had been poor before; after that we were
destitute."

Katherine nodded sympathetically. Her life had been hard, and
there was plenty of rough work in it, but she had never been within
seeing distance of destitution, and she had plenty of pity for
those whose lives had been fuller of care than her own.

"I tried keeping near home first," went on Jervis; "but it was of
no use. There was no room for me anywhere; the only thing I could
get to do was a miserable clerkship at twelve shillings a week.
Just think of it! Twelve shillings a week, and there were four of
us to live! I bore it for six months, and then I cleared out. My
next brother, who is four years younger, got work which brought in
enough to buy his food, and I have managed to send home something
to help to keep my mother and the youngest boy, who is still at
school."

"Perhaps the necessity to do your utmost has been very good for
you," Katherine ventured de