Page:Robins - My Little Sister.djvu/57



WHEN to-morrow came we knew.

We had been using up our capital.

Another year, at this rate, and it would be gone. What was to become of us?

Should we have to sell Buncombe House? I asked.

Only then we heard that Buncombe belonged to Lord Helmstone. But the rent was low. My mother said "at the worst," we would go on living at Buncombe. Yes, even if we kept only one servant instead of three. For we would still have the tiny pension granted an officer's widow.

And should we always have the pension?

Yes, as long as she lived.

Not "always" then.

A horrible feeling of helplessness, a sense of the bigness of the world and of our littleness, came down upon me.