say that?'
He seemed to consider,
'I think it's your eyes; there's the same look about them as though you thought something was going to happen to you and were looking ahead for it.'
At his words she was hurt and immediately lowered these betraying eyes, keeping them fixed upon the table as he continued: 'What's come over you lately ? You don't seem the same to me at all. Is there anything wrong with you that's making you like that?'
'Everything's wrong,' she answered slowly. 'Since Mamma died I've been as miserable as could be and I haven't had a soul to speak to about it. I can't suffer to be near to to Nancy. She doesn't like me. She's always at me for something. Everything is different. The house has been so different that it's not like the same place Father's different too.'
'You've nothing to be feared of from him. You were always his pet,' he retorted. 'He's always sucking around you in some way.'
'I wish he would leave me alone,' she replied dully. 'He's just driving me on all the time with this work. I can't stand it. I don't feel well in myself.'
'Tuts! Nessie,' he exclaimed reprovingly. 'That's Mamma all over again. Ye should pull yourself together. What's the matter with you?'
'I've always got a headache! I wake up with it in the morning and it never leaves me all day. It makes me so stupid that I don't know what I'm doing. Besides, I can't eat the food we get now and I'm always tired. I'm tired at this very minute.'
'You'll be all right when you've got this exam over. You'll win the Latta all right.'
'I'll win it all right,' she exclaimed wildly. 'But what's going to become of me then? What is he going to do with me after? Tell me that! Am I to be shoved on like this all the time and never know what's going to come of it? He'll never say when I ask him. He doesn't know himself.'
'You'll be a teacher that's the thing for you.'
She shook her head.
'No! That wouldn't be good enough for him. I wanted to do that myself to put down my name to go on to the Normal, but he wouldn't allow it. Oh, Matt!' she cried, 'I wish I had somebody to put in a word for me. I'm so downright wretched about it and about everything else I wish sometimes I had never been born!'
He shifted his gaze uncomfortably from her appealing face which, stamped by a forlorn wistf ulness, seemed to implore him to help her.
'You should get out the house and play with the other girls,' he advanced, somewhat uncertainly. 'That would take your mind off things a bit.'
'How can I?' she exclaimed frantically. 'Ever since I was a wee thing I've been kept in at these lessons, and now I'm flung in here every night, and will be, too, for the whole of the next six months. And if I dared to go out, he would leather me. You wouldn't believe it, Matt, but I sometimes think I'll go out of my mind the way I'm kept grindin' at it.'
'I go out,' he exclaimed valiantly. 'He didn't stop me goin' out.'
'You're different,' she replied sadly, her puny outburst subsiding and leaving her more dejected than before. 'And even if I did go out, what good would it do? None of the other girls would play with me. They'll hardly speak to me as it is. One of them said the other day that her father said she was to have nothing to do with any one that came out of this house. Oh! I do wish you could help me, Matt!'
'How can I help you?' he replied roughly, irritated at her entreaties. 'Don't you know I'm goin' away next week?'
She gazed at him with a slight wrinkling of her brow and repeated, without apparently comprehending:
'Going away next week?'
'To South America,' he replied grandly; 'to a splendid new position I've got out there. Miles and miles away from this sink of a town.'
Then she understood, and in the sudden perception that he was leaving immediately for a far distant land, that she, of all the Brodie children, would be left in a solitary, unprotected state to face the dreadful unhappiness of her present existence in the home, she paled. Matt had never helped her much, and during these latter months had, indeed, comforted her still less, but he was her brother, a companion in her distress, and she had only a moment ago appealed to him for assistance. Her lips quivered, her eyes became blurred, she burst into tears.
'Don't go, Matt,' she sobbed. 'I'll be left all alone if ye go. I’ll have nobody at all in this terrible house.'
'What are ye talking about,' he retorted savagely. 'You can't know what you're saying. Am I going to give up the chance of a lifetime money and freedom and and everything for the likes of you? You're mad!'
'I'll be mad if you go,' she cried. 'What chance will I have here all by myself? Mary away, and you away, and only me left! What'll become of me?'
'Stop your howling,' he shot at her, with a quick glance towards the door. 'Do you want everybody to hear you with that bawling? He'll be in at us in a minute if you're not careful. I've got to go and that's all about it.'
'Could ye not take me with you then, Matt,' she gulped, stifling her sobs with difficulty. 'I know I'm young but I could keep the house for ye. That's always the sort of thing I've wanted to do and not these miserable lessons. I would do everything for you, Matt.'
Her attitude apprised him that she would serve him like a slave, her eyes implored him not to leave her desolate and forsaken.
'They would never hear of ye going out. The sooner you get it out of your head the better. Can you not look pleased at your brother getting a fine job like this instead of moaning and groaning about it?'
'I am pleased for your sake, Matt,' she sniffed, wiping her eyes with her saturated handkerchief. 'I… I was just thinking about myself.'
'That's it,' he shot out. 'You can't think of anybody else. Try to have some consideration for other people. Don't be so selfish!'
'All right, Matt,' she said, with a last convulsive sigh. 'I'll try. Anyway, I'm sorry.'
'That's better,' he replied largely, in a more affable tone; but even as he spoke he shivered, and, changing his tone to one of complaint, he cried, 'Gosh; It's cold in here! How do you expect a man to stand talking to you if you haven't got a fire? If your circulation can stand this, mine can't. I'll need to put my coat on and away out to walk up my circulation.' He stamped his feet then turned abruptly, calling to her, 'I'm away out then, Nessie.'
When he had gone she remained rigid, the small, wet ball of the handkerchief clutched tightly in her hand, her red-lidded eyes fixed upon the door which had closed upon her like the door of a prison. The avenue of the future down which she gazed was gloomy and amidst the dark, forbidding shadows she saw the figure of Nessie Brodie pass fearfully and alone. No one could now come between her and her father, no one interpose between her frailty and the strength of his unknown purpose. Matthew would go as Mary had gone. Mary! She had thought so much of her lately that she longed now for the comfort of her sister's arm around her, for the solace of her quiet smile, the sustaining courage that lay within her steady
eyes. She needed someone to whom she might unburden her weary mind, in whom she could confide her sorrows, and the thought of her sister's tranquil fortitude drew her. 'Mary!' she whispered, like an entreaty. 'Mary dear! I didn't love you as you deserved when you were here, but oh! I wish I had you near me now!'
As the almost incredible words left her lips, the expression on her pinched, tear-stained face grew suddenly transfigured, illuminated as from a sudden light within. Hope again shone in the sorrowful eyes, mingled with a purpose so rash that only her present despair could have induced her to consider it. Why, she thought, should she not write to her sister ? A terrible consideration, but her only chance of succour! Upstairs, hidden in a secret corner of her bedroom, lay the letter which Mamma had given her some days before she died and which bore the address in London where Mary lived.
If she acted carefully, her father would never know; she knew, too, that Mary would never betray her, and with the renewed consciousness of her sister's love, she got up from her chair, and, as though walking in a dream, went out of the room and tiptoed silently upstairs. After a moment she returned and shutting the door, listened attentively, trembling violently in all her limbs. She had the letter, but she was terrified at what she had done, at what she proposed to do. Nevertheless she persisted in her purpose. At the table she tore out a leaf from one of her copy-books and hurriedly composed a short note of pathetic entreaty, telling Mary in a few words how she was situated and imploring her assistance, entreating her to come to her if she could. As she wrote, she looked up from
