nd be in a position to receive her nurse's
salary, which would be as soon as she had completed her first year in
the hospital. There were seventy-five pounds remaining, which might
serve to keep May at Thirlwall Hall in St. Ambrose's with the chance of
her gaining a scholarship and partly maintaining herself for the rest of
her stay in college. "Little May's" maintaining herself in any degree
was a notion half to laugh at, half to cry over, while it took
possession of Dr. Millar's imagination just as serving in "Robinson's"
along with Phyllis Carey had hold of May's.

Another year (who knew?) it might not be in the Millars' power to afford
May the opportunity of growing up a scholar, on which her father had set
his heart. That consciousness, and the sense of the value which her
husband put on May's abilities and their culture, brought round Mrs.
Millar. She began to contemplate with something like composure what she
would otherwise have strongly objected to, the sending forth of her
youngest darling--the child who so clung to her and to home--into an
indifferent or hostile world.

Truth to tell, it was May herself who was the great obstacle. She was
not cast in the heroic mould of Annie and Rose. It was like tearing up
her heart-strings to drag her away from her father and mother, Dora,
Tray, the Old Doctor's House, Redcross itself. She had enough perception
of what was due to everybody concerned--herself included--and just
sufficient self-control not to disgrace herself and vex her father by
openly opposing and actively fighting against his plans for her welfare.
But she threw all the discouraging weight of a passive resistance and
dumb protest into the scale.

CHAPTER XV.

TOM ROBINSON TAKEN INTO COUNSEL.

At last May, in the innocence of her heart, took a rash step. She heard
her father say it was good, showery, fishing weather, and she was aware
Tom Robinson often fished in the Dewes; what was to hinder her from
making a detour by the river on her way home from school, and if she saw
Tom near the old bridge--the pools below were specially patronized by
fishers--she might go up to him and ask him frankly if he had an opening
for her services, along with those of Phyllis Carey, in his shop? If he
had, would he do her the great favour to speak to her father and mother,
and ask them not to send her away to be a scholar at St. Ambrose, but to
let her stay and be a shop-woman in Redcross?

Tom Robinson, at