She entered very quietly, for the
maid-of-all-work had met her in the passage and told her that Miss
Jeannie was asleep. She had been coughing very much about dinner-time,
but now she was asleep.
There was a fire in the grate, a small one, for the coal was economised
by means of two large fire-bricks, and on a table (Augusta's writing
table), placed at the further side of the room, was a paraffin-lamp
turned low. Drawn up in front, but a little to one side of the fire, was
a sofa, covered with red rep, and on the sofa lay a fair-haired little
form, so thin and fragile that it looked like the ghost or outline of a
girl, rather than a girl herself. It was Jeannie, her sick sister, and
she was asleep. Augusta stole softly up to look at her. It was a sweet
little face that her eyes fell on, although it was so shockingly thin,
with long, curved lashes, delicate nostrils, and a mouth shaped like a
bow. All the lines and grooves which the chisel of Pain knows so well how
to carve were smoothed out of it now, and in their place lay the shadow
of a smile.
Augusta looked at her and clenched her fists, while a lump rose in her
throat, and her grey eyes filled with tears. How could she get the money
to save her? The year before a rich man, a man who was detestable to
her, had wanted to marry her, and she would have nothing to say to him.
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