ever we could have put for a fourth I don’t know;
and the garrets, they ain’t safe even to walk over,
the floors is that rotten.”

“TJ think Ill have another try about the roof to-
morrow; I shall be nigh Mr. Barrett’s office.”
“Bless you, it ain't no use, Benjamin, if he’s
willing, the other two will be agen it.”

“Well, there ain’t no harm trying, we shan’t
have a room to live in if something is not done.”

“And they won’t care if there isn’t, they don’t
| trouble nothing about it.”

“Then we'll either have to leave the farm, or
patch it up ourselves, and I don’t know which
would be the worse of the two, spending money on
other folks’ houses, or losing what we’ve put on
the ground.”

Mrs. Ramsay was not much disturbed at this
alternative. She had heard it before, and knew
its value, being perfectly aware that her husband,
rather than go any where else, would live in two
rooms of the Castle, or one, for the matter of that,
if the rest were past using. They were both too
old for changes, and the farm had been their home
for too long to make them care about leaving it
while there was any possibility of remaining.

II.

“Wert, George, I hope you are satisfied at last;
you surely won’t think we run any risks up here.”

“No, I do trust you are tolerably safe. Any
how, we could not take you much higher, this
seems the highest point for miles round. What a
view it is !”

The speakers stood on the summit of the hill,
with the Castle Farm nestling just below them,
though out of sight. A few quaint old beeches,
with long level branches, stretched their arms
towards the East, but did not hide the clear sweep
of the sky-line. From the blue slopes of Edge
Hill, to the purple tips of the Malvern range, and
then round through the smoky veil of the northern
horizon, with its broken lights and half-revealed
scenery, to the tall chimneys and tapering spires of
Birmingham and Smethwick, the eye ranged with-
out a break, and Mr. Ferrars was naturally struck
by it, after long use to the narrow strects of
Dudley, with their blackness and dirt.

“Yes, it is a lovely view,” answered his com-
panion, after a few minutes’ silence. “TI shall
often come up here with a book while you are
away. Ah! I do wish you could stay with us.”

‘No use wishing that, Winnie ; I must go back
to-night, but I will come up whenever I can, and I
shall get on twice as well now that I have no
anxiety about you to weigh on my mind.”

Winnie Corsellis sighed a little, but did not say
any more; she knew that if George Ferrars,

WINNIE CORSELLIS; OR, DEATH IN THE POT. 219

working among the cholera-smitten courts and
alleys of Dudley, had danger to encounter, she
would have the weight of heart-sickening anxiety
to endure, and that his load was transferred to her;
but she did not murmur at the exchange.

When he had first urged their going into the
country, she had earnestly opposed the plan.
She was not afraid for herself, but she could not
help feeling timid about her lover, who would be
day and night in close contact with the plague,
and she knew that it would be harder to go away
to the quiet country home where she could only
see him at rare intervals, and hear of him by post,
than to have remained at home where she could
know for certain how each day left him at its close.
But George Ferrars was bent upon her going,
and when Winnie saw how much he wished it, she
gave way and made no further difficulty.

“JT hate it all the same, but it will only worry
George, and make a fuss,” she said to her sister,
the wife of Mr. Ferrars’ partner, “and if we are to
leave, the sooner the better; I believe they will be
happier when we are gone.”

Mrs. Hammond assented.

“Yes, I know they will: Charles is fidgetting
about the children, and says he cannot half attend
te his work. J wish they would have let us stay
though, Winnie, and been content with sending
off the children under Harris’s charge.”

“So do I, but they won’t; so we must make the
best of it. Who is going up to this lodging with us?”

“George, I believe, and then Charles will come
and see us after a time.”

“We shall not see much of either of them, I
suspect,” said Winnie, and then she went off to
pack up her things, and perhaps have a quiet cry
in her own bed-room,

When the elder Miss Corsellis had married
Mr. Hammond, Winnie was still at school, but she
used to spend her holidays with her sister more
often than at her nominal home, for her father had
married a second time, and there were a number of
little half-brothers and sisters, growing up in the
old house, who absorbed all the care of their
mother, and most of such affection as their busy
father found time to show his children, so that
the two elder girls felt rather like strangers than
one of the family, and every body agreed that it
was a very good thing when she became engaged to.
Mr. Hammond almost as soon as she left school.
It was thought at first that their marriage would
be delayed for a time; but the death ofa relative
enabled Mr. Hammond to purchase a good practice,
and to take his wife down to Dudley after a few
months’ engagement. Dudley was certainly not the
place they would have chosen to reside in, but
there was a good professional opening, and as years
went on Mr. Hammond found himself obliged to