“They won’t want much,” said Jan; “just a trifle for their bonnets and shoes, and suchlike.  I shall pay the house-bills, you know.  In fact, I’d as soon give them enough for their clothes, as not.  I dare say I should have it, even the first year, after paying expenses and old West’s five hundred.”

It was hopeless to contend with Jan upon the subject of money, especially when it was his money.  Lionel said no more.  But he had not the slightest doubt it would end in Jan’s house being saddled with the Misses West; and that help for them from Dr. West would never come.

Miss West herself was thinking the same—­that help from her father never would come.

This conversation between Jan and Lionel had taken place at Verner’s Pride, in the afternoon subsequent to the arrival of Dr. West’s letter.  Deborah West had also received one from her father.  She learned by it that he was about to retire from the partnership, and that Mr. Jan Verner would carry on the practice alone.  The doctor intimated that she and Amilly would continue to live on in the house with Mr. Jan’s permission, whom he had asked to afford them house-room; and he more loudly promised to transmit them one hundred pounds per annum, in stated payments, as might be convenient to him.

The letter was read three times over by both sisters.  Amilly did not like it, but upon Deborah it made a painfully deep impression.  Poor ladies!  Since the discovery of the codicil they had gone about Deerham with veils over their faces and their heads down, inclined to think that lots in this world were dealt out all too unequally.

At the very time that Jan was at Verner’s Pride that afternoon, Deborah sat alone in the dining-room, pondering over the future.  Since the finding of the codicil, neither of the sisters had cared to seat themselves in state in the drawing-room, ready to receive visitors, should they call.  They had no heart for it.  They chose, rather, to sit in plain attire, and hide themselves in the humblest and most retired apartment.  They took no pride now in anointing their scanty curls with castor oil, in contriving for their dress, in setting off their persons.  Vanity seemed to have gone out for Deborah and Amilly West.

Deborah sat there in the dining-room, her hair looking grievously thin, her morning dress of black print with white spots upon it not changed for the old turned black silk of the afternoon.  Her elbow rested on the faded and not very clean table-cover, and her fingers were running unconsciously through that scanty hair.  The prospect before her looked, to her mind, as hopelessly forlorn as she looked.