see your sisters slaving for a pittance, and
to be content to be a shame and a burden! If you cannot work, at least
you might try to be a man, and not disgrace our name."

Bitter words--bitter words I what need to repeat them? The girl had
worked herself into a frenzy of anger, and hardly realised what she was
saying, and the boy eat still and listened--the boy of seventeen, who
all his life had been the spoiled darling of the household. Ten minutes
before the stress of accumulated troubles was upon him, and he had been
wrestling with an agony of repentance. A kiss from Philippa, a soft
word from Hope, would have brought him to his knees in a flood of
penitent tears; but the lash of Madge's words hardened his heart within
him. He made no attempt to stop the torrent of reproach, but when at
last she came to a pause he rose slowly, and standing at his full
height, looked down upon her.

"If you have quite finished, will you kindly leave my room?" He pointed
to the door as he spoke, and there was a look on his face which Madge
had never seen before. Barney the boy was dead: Barney the man
confronted her with haggard face, and spoke in a tone of authority which
she dared not disobey. She turned towards the door, murmuring
disjointed words of warning:

"If you will not tell, I must. Philippa--she will have to know."

"There is no necessity to disturb Philippa to-night. In the morning, no
doubt, she will hear that--and other things!"

There was an ominous sound in those last three words which chilled Madge
with a sense of trouble to come, but the door was closed against her
even as they were spoken, and she crept back to bed shivering and
dismayed. Perhaps if she had been gentler, more conciliating--if she
had fought with the weapons of love instead of anger--she would not have
been so signally defeated. Like many another quick-tempered sister,
Madge's anger ended in self-reproach, and when too late she would have
given the world to withdraw her bitter, pitiless words.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

DARK DAYS.

The next morning, when the four sisters were seated at breakfast, Steve
entered and stationed himself before the fire to read a long,
business-looking letter. His exclamations of dismay as he read roused
the girls' attention, but Steve did not reply--to their eager
questioning. With set face he handed them the letter, and one by one
they read the unwelcome intelligence, and swelled the chorus of sighs