Her Faithful Knight — page 74: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

70 Ways and Means. learned that the particular firm who employed her pro- _ posed shortly to dispense with her services in that direc- tion. The girl’s British Museum sketching had been undertaken solely with a view to supplementing her knowledge of figure drawing, as she had no money to ob- tain lessons, and her experience as an artist behind the scenes of the Grassmarket was the first of its kind, so that she could not yet know whether her sketches would be accepted. Meantime Phyllis, whom she had believed to be happily in the receipt of two pounds ten a week until the ap- proaching midsummer, was absolutely penniless, heavily in debt, without even suitable clothing, and in need of im- mediate help; there was hardly anything in the house worth selling or pawning, and all the money which Dor- othy possessed in the world was thirty-three shillings in hand and one pound five in the Post Office Savings Bank. Racking her brains in the endeavor to see a way out of their difficulties, Dorothy decided that the business of eating “humble pie” to their own wealthy relative was so eminently repugnant that it must only be undertaken as a last resource. The personage in question was not even a blood relation, but only a great-aunt by marriage. Dorothy had not seen this lady for some years, but knew that she was greatly incensed against the late Mr. Knight. Help for Phyllis was hardly likely to come from that quar- ter, she decided, almost with relief, for the notion of humbling herself before a consequential and purse-proud woman was intensely distasteful to her. Meantime, a doctor must be found at once. The sis- ters’ health through all their trials had been so uniformly good that it was necessary to discover a physician who would undertake the case. At seven o’clock, when Dorothy rose, Phyllis was still GOmMmiIicbooksico