“MOTHER,” said Madge, as she and Mrs. Kayll were making the beds on the next Monday morning, “I wish you would talk to Jem. He is determined to leave his place, and it does seem such a pity.”

“Leave!” cried Mrs. Kayll, stopping in the act of shaking up a pillow. “Why, I thought he liked it so much!”

“So he did at first, but he’s tired of it already, just as he always is, after a month or so.”Mrs. Kayll sighed wearily, and laid the pillow in its place, taking care that the hole in the much-patched cover should go underneath and out of sight.

“Tiresome boy! He is so unsettled. I’ll talk to him to-night; but it’s not much good when he has once taken a dislike to his work. He’ll never go on with it with any pleasure. I don’t know what would become of us if Jack were the same. Heigh-ho! You children are a constant anxiety to me. We really can’t afford to have Jem at home on our hands just now, when your father’s doing so badly—really I don’t think he ever did so badly before.”

“Yet,” said Madge thoughtfully, straightening the patchwork quilt, made long since by her own hands, “Jem is so good in his way, and seems much more fond of us all than either Bob or Jack, and plays with the children without teasing them like Jack does.”

“Yes, he’s a dear affectionate boy,” sighed her mother, “but I wish his affection made him consider us a little more and himself a little less.”At this point, as they had finished the bed they were making, Madge picked up the baby—who had been sitting in a corner all the time, contentedly sucking a knob which had come off a chest of drawers, and looking on at his mother and sister while they were busy—and conveyed him into the next room, where he had again to sit with his back to the wall and amuse himself as well as he could.

“Never mind. Don’t get unhappy about it, mother dear,” said Madge in her quiet philosophical way. “As long as we’re all well, that’s the chief thing, isn’t it? Being poor isn’t half so bad as being ill.”

From which it will be seen that, like most other people, Madge saw the world with quite different eyes when she was fresh and bright in the morning, from those with which she looked at it when she was tired and depressed at night.

“Ah, it’s all very well for you, child,” said her mother, who seemed to think poverty was quite bad enough, as she looked at the girl’s worn blue dress, and remembered how hard it had been to make the children look anything like respectable for church yesterday—“It’s all very well for you, but when you come to my age you will wish you too had a little leisure, and need not grind, grind, slave and pinch from year’s end to year’s end. But there, Madgie, it’s of no use grumbling. I don’t really mind, only I get tired of it now and then.”

And she smiled, and then sighed as a few more disagreeable reflections came crowding into her mind. Her husband’s coat was very very shabby, and he ought to have another, just to keep up his character in his business. The coals were getting low, too, and the summer was drawing to its close; there was no saying how soon the days might turn cold. And there was very little food in the larder. She must really turn her thoughts to providing dinner.

“Madge,” she said suddenly, “your father has a sale to-day, and won’t be home to dinner, so we’ll not cook anything but some potatoes, because there’s a jar of nice beef dripping, and you all like potatoes and dripping.”“Yes, mother,” Madge answered, apparently scarcely giving the matter a thought.

It was well for Mrs. Kayll that her eldest daughter was so amiable and easy of disposition. Nothing came wrong to Madge. She took life quietly, with a kind of stolid good-temper, and was one of those people of whom everyone else expects a great deal, and gets it, without being surprised, or particularly grateful. She worked hard from morning to night, uncomplainingly, and it was not until she was very tired, and had more on her hands than she could do, that she was sometimes led into speaking a little sharply to her young brothers and sisters.

Ever since she left off going to school, Madge had been nurse, cook, needlewoman, and in part teacher, for in so large a family as this, where no servant could be kept, there was always more than enough employment for both her mother and herself, with keeping the house tidy, everyone’s clothes clean and in good repair, preparing meals and clearing them away, and taking care of the baby.The children who were at school came in for their simple dinner, and ran off again; the afternoon was passed in the same way as usual, with washing up, straightening, and making all comfortable and ready for tea.

To this meal Jack, Jem, and the three girls came home, but Mr. Kayll and Bob were not expected until nine or ten. So the mother poured out tea, and Madge cut bread and dripping for everybody with untiring patience.

Suddenly, in the middle of the meal, Jem remarked in a matter-of-fact tone:

“I’ve left.”

“What?” cried Jack.

“Oh, Jem, you don’t mean that!” exclaimed Mrs. Kayll.

“I do, though; but don’t you bother about it, mother, I’ll soon get something else to do.”

“Jem, you’re a—” began Jack hotly; but his mother touched his lips with her hand.

“Don’t call him names, whatever he’s done, Jack. That won’t do any good. But oh, Jem, it is too bad if you have, when you know how poor we are, and how little your father has had to do lately.”

“But don’t you see, mother,” said Jem, with a rather superior smile, “I mean to get something better, so that I shall be more real help. I’m sure I ought to be making more than four shillings a week, and I believe I can if you leave me alone.”

“Oh, yes,” put in Edie, who always believed in Jem, and took his part against the whole world, “he’ll soon find a better place, where he’ll get on—won’t you, dear? And he has stayed in this one a month now—that’s longer than he was last time, and next time he’ll stay longer still.”

Jack gave a sort of grunt that seemed to express disapproval, and the matter dropped until Bob came in a couple of hours later, very tired and not in the best of tempers in consequence.

“Father’s coming directly, mother,” he said. “I won’t have anything till he comes in, and then we’ll have a bit of supper together.”He sat down, and Bessie, the smallest and palest of the girls, climbed on his knee, and slipped her arm under his and round his back.

“Well, monster,” he said, for this was his nickname for the slight little creature, “how have you been getting on? Any news?”

“No,” said Bessie, “except that Jem’s left his place.”

“Left? What, have they sent him off?”

“No. He left of his own accord. He was tired of it.”

“Then he’s a miserable, selfish, stupid, useless creature, and for two pins I’d give him a thorough thrashing,” cried Bob. “Do you hear that, Jem?”

Madge tried to check his anger, as her mother was not in the room, but he would not listen to her.

“No, Madgie,” he went on, “I shall let him hear the truth for once in his life, as father’s so easy with him. He doesn’t deserve to have a home to come to when he behaves as he does, caring more for whether he likes his work, or whether he doesn’t, than for seeing mother slave till she’s ready to drop. Do you think she likes toiling from morning to night to keep us all respectable and comfortable, or that father likes shouting himself hoarse all day before he can make people buy things for half what they’re worth, or that Madge enjoys sweeping the stairs and washing up the sauce-pans, or even that Jack or I like our work? You’re the only one that doesn’t seem to think it’s possible to do what you ought, whether you like it or not. You seem to think you were put into the world to enjoy yourself, no matter how inconvenient that may be for other people.”

Jem looked very cast-down, for he was fond of Bob, and liked to have his good opinion. Edie put in a word for him.

“Don’t be too hard on him, Bob. He’s much younger than you, you know.”

“I don’t think it’s possible to be too hard,” he answered. “I’m thoroughly ashamed of him.”

At this point Mrs. Kayll re-entered the room, and directly after the head of the family arrived, Madge having only just finished setting the bread and cheese and cold bacon in readiness. Mr. Kayll was evidently tired out after the day’s hard work, but he had a smile and a nod for each of the young people in turn, and a kiss for his wife, who went to the door to meet him.

While he and his eldest boy ate their supper, Madge put the baby off to sleep in his cradle, and the three little girls said good-night and went to bed, Edie whispering to Jem as she passed him:

“Never mind, old boy, so long as father isn’t angry.”

When they were gone Mr. Kayll took out his purse, which he handed to Jack, with:

“Give that to your mother, Jacky. That’ll set her up for a little while.”

Mrs. Kayll poured the contents into her hand and counted ten sovereigns.

“All for me?” she asked.

“Of course it is. Make much of it. There’s no saying when the next will come.”

Jack took the empty purse to give back to his father, and turned it over in his hands, squeezing it, and pretending to try to find some stray coin that had been overlooked, but really slipping into it two sovereigns of his own, which he had held in his hand for some time, looking out for an opportunity of getting them into his father’s possession without the act being seen.

Poor Jack, who was generally supposed to care very little about his family, had been saving for a long time, depriving himself of anything he could so as to put a little aside from his weekly earnings, and had at last been unable longer to resist the temptation of giving Mr. Kayll a surprise. Yet his face expressed nothing as he handed back the purse, which his father weighed in his hand with mock grief.

“Feels terribly light again,” he said, returning it to his pocket as he believed empty.

Jack laughed inwardly, imagining the expression of his father’s face when he should find the money, and be unable to guess whence it had come. He controlled his mouth, and kept a serious face then, but once or twice afterwards during the evening a stifled chuckle proceeded from him, the meaning of which no one could discover.

Madge had come down again and was just about to put the food away, when there came a timid knock at the front door.