Doggedly every morning he put on his brown paper cap, and went off to his crowded little workshop, but with unequal footsteps, quite unlike his former firm tread.

But it would not do.

He stood for hours before his half-shaped blocks of oak, with birds and leaves and heads partly traced upon them; but he found himself powerless to complete his own designs.

Between him and them stood the image of Phebe, a poverty-stricken, work-worn woman, toiling with her hands, in all weathers, upon their three or four barren fields, which were now the only property left to him.

It had been pleasant to him to see her milk the cows, and help him to fetch in the sheep from the moors; but until now he had been able to pay for the rougher work on the farmstead.