“Thirty pounds, and not a halfpenny to pay it with; must we borrow?”

“Oh no—­no,” was the answer, with a shrinking gesture; “no borrowing.  There is the diamond ring.”

This was a sort of heir-loom from eldest daughter to eldest daughter of the Leaf family which had been kept even as a sort of superstition, through all temptations of poverty.—­The last time Miss Leaf looked at it she had remarked, jestingly, it should be given some day to that important personage talked of for many a year among the three aunts—­Mrs. Ascott Leaf.

“Who must do without it now,” said Johanna, looking regretfully at the ring; “that is, if he ever takes to himself a wife, poor boy.”

Hilary answered, beneath her breath, “Unless he alters, I earnestly hope he never may.”  And there came over her involuntarily a wild, despairing thought, Would it not be better that neither Ascott nor herself should ever be married, that the family might die out, and trouble the world no more?

Nevertheless she rose up to do what she knew had to be done, and what there was nobody to do but herself.

“Don’t mind it, Johanna; for indeed I do not.  I shall go to a first rate, respectable jeweler, and he will not cheat me; and then I shall find my way to the sponging-house—­isn’t that what they call it?  I dare say many a poor woman has been there before me.  I am not the first, and shall not be the last, and no body will harm me.  I think I look honest, though my name is Leaf.”

She laughed—­a bitter laugh; but Johanna silenced it in a close embrace; and when Hilary rose up again she was quite her natural self.  She summoned Elizabeth, and began giving her all domestic directions, just as usual; finally, bade her sister good by in a tone as like her usual tone as possible, and left her settled on the sofa in content and peace.

Elizabeth followed to the door.  Miss Hilary had asked her for the card on which Ascott had written the address of the place where he had been taken to; and though the girl said not a word, her anxious eyes made piteous inquiry.

Her mistress patted her on the shoulder.

“Never mind about me; I shall come to no harm, Elizabeth.”

“It’s a bad place; such a dreadful place, Mrs. Jones says.”

“Is it?” Elizabeth guessed part, not the whole of the feelings that made Hilary hesitate, shrink even, from the duty before her, turning first so hot, and then so pale.  Only as a duty could she have done it at all.  “No matter, I must go.  Take care of my sister.”

She ran down the door steps, and walked quickly through the Crescent.  It was a clear, sunshiny, frosty day—­such a day as always both cheered and calmed her.  She had, despite all her cares, youth, health, energy; and a holy and constant love lay like a sleeping angel in her heart.  Must I tell the truth, and own that before she had gone two streets’ length Hilary ceased to feel so very, very miserable?