“I know you did, sir,” I replied.  “But what was a poor traveling portrait-painter like my husband, who lives by taking likenesses first in one place and then in another, to do?  Our bread depended on his using his eyes, at the very time when you warned him to let them have a rest.”

“Have you no other resources?  No money but the money Mr. Kerby can get by portrait-painting?” asked the doctor.

“None,” I answered, with a sinking at my heart as I thought of his bill for medical attendance.

“Will you pardon me?” he said, coloring and looking a little uneasy, “or, rather, will you ascribe it to the friendly interest I feel in you, if I ask whether Mr. Kerby realizes a comfortable income by the practice of his profession?  Don’t,” he went on anxiously, before I could reply—­“pray don’t think I make this inquiry from a motive of impertinent curiosity!”

I felt quite satisfied that he could have no improper motive for asking the question, and so answered it at once plainly and truly.

“My husband makes but a small income,” I said.  “Famous London portrait-painters get great prices from their sitters; but poor unknown artists, who only travel about the country, are obliged to work hard and be contented with very small gains.  After we have paid all that we owe here, I am afraid we shall have little enough left to retire on, when we take refuge in some cheaper place.”

“In that case,” said the good doctor (I am so glad and proud to remember that I always liked him from the first!), “in that case, don’t make yourself anxious about my bill when you are thinking of clearing off your debts here.  I can afford to wait till Mr. Kerby’s eyes are well again, and I shall then ask him for a likeness of my little daughter.  By that arrangement we are sure to be both quits, and both perfectly satisfied.”

He considerately shook hands and bade me farewell before I could say half the grateful words to him that were on my lips.  Never, never shall I forget that he relieved me of my two heaviest anxieties at the most anxious time of my life.  The merciful, warm-hearted man!  I could almost have knelt down and kissed his doorstep, as I crossed it on my way home.

18th.—­If I had not resolved, after what happened yesterday, to look only at the cheerful side of things for the future, the events of to-day would have robbed me of all my courage, at the very outset of our troubles.  First, there was the casting up of our bills, and the discovery, when the amount of them was balanced against all the money we have saved up, that we shall only have between three and four pounds left in the cash-box, after we have got out of debt.  Then there was the sad necessity of writing letters in my husband’s name to the rich people who were ready to employ him, telling them of the affliction that had overtaken him, and of the impossibility of his executing their orders for portraits for the next six months to come.