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WENT ON INTO THE DINING-ROOMWHERE HIS SISTERS WERE SITTING AT WORK.
"So Andrews has been here to-day!" he said.
"How do you know?" demanded Annie sharply, for she had made up her mind that nothing could be done in the matter, and therefore she should not tell her brother of the lawyer's visit.
"We may as well tell him, Annie," said Molly; "he knows more about things than we do. Mr. Andrews says we are living beyond our income, and we must curtail our expenses somehow," she explained.
"The butcher and the fishmonger have been bothering me to pay their bills, and so, of course, I had to send and ask Mr. Andrews to forward me a cheque to do it with. And instead of sending it, he came to tell me that there was no more money to be had out of all our property," added Annie in a tone of intense bitterness.
"And Hannah says she has never been used to being told she must be careful with this, that, and the other, and won't have it now, so has given us notice," said Molly, as if this must fill up their cup of woe.
Arthur rested his chin on his hands and his elbows on the table, to think over what his sisters had told him. "I wish I knew just how things are," he said at last. "I wonder whether I could see Mr. Andrews to-night if I went there?"
"But why should you go?" interrupted Annie. "It is getting late, and you must be tired, I am sure, after all the work you have to do at that shop. I don't see how we are to live on less money than we do!" concluded Annie doggedly.
"Well, I'll go and see if I can have a talk with Mr. Andrews. If there is a disagreeable thing to do the sooner it's done the better." And, picking up his cap, Arthur went out without giving his sisters time for further protest.
"I am very glad you have come, Mr. Murray," said the lawyer, when Arthur was announced. "I tried to explain to your sister this afternoon that every bit of the property has been mortgaged to its full, that is, to its present, value. By and by it will be worth more, and may bring in a fair rental if we can only hold on for a bit longer, and keep the interest on the mortgages paid up. But to do this I cannot afford to allow your sisters more than fifty pounds a year, besides the seventy-five pounds that is secured to your mother. I tried to explain this to them to-day, pointing out to them the advantage it would be to all of you, in years to come. But if they cannot lessen the household expenses, there will be nothing for it but to sell the property for about half what it will be worth in a few years' time. I should think it might be done. What do you think, Mr. Arthur?"
"I don't know much about housekeeping, and what it costs, but you know I am earning a little now that would add to the income. Only I suppose they would have to be careful and regulate their expenditure, and that is what we have not done."
"No Murray ever did it. Your family has been an easy-going, careless people, shunning all the responsibilities of life as far as possible, as long as a penny could be wrung out of the land, without anything being done to improve it. That is the secret of the whole matter, Mr. Arthur. But as you have shown yourself a sensible lad in taking this situation at Brading's, I am beginning to hope I may yet live to see the property partially cleared at least, so that your mother and sisters may be provided for in years to come."
"Thank you, Mr. Andrews. I think you may take it that my sisters will agree with me that we must certainly live within the income you can afford to pay us on these terms."
And Arthur went home, feeling very thankful that the matter had been explained to him so far, and that Molly at least would be ready and willing to fall in with the lawyer's plans.
When he reached home, however, he found that fresh trouble had arisen. Hannah said she must have a girl to help her, or she would leave at once.
"Then she had better go," said Arthur promptly, "and we will have a gas-stove fixed in the kitchen, as they have at Brading's; it will save a lot of trouble in cooking. How much do you pay Hannah?" he asked.
"Twenty pounds a year," answered Annie.
"Well, we cannot afford to part with so much as that in the future, and so I will tell Hannah that we mean to try a younger servant. Don't you think you could manage?"
"I am sure we could," answered Molly; "but who is to tell Hannah? She will be so disagreeable."
"Oh, I'll manage that!" said Arthur.
And he went at once, and said they could not afford to spend as much as they had been doing, and must have a young girl to help with the work. He was rather relieved when she said that she would leave the next day, though they heard later that she had previously arranged to go to another situation the following day.
HOW TO MAKE ENDS MEET
"THERE'S an awful lot of letters this time, Mr. Bristow," said Arthur one morning as the chief accountant entered the office where he was busy sorting them.
"Ah, there is a heavy post!" remarked that gentleman. "You must be careful, Murray, that none of them go astray, for there was a fine bother over that a few months ago. That is why we get the letter-bag brought here. The messenger used to do it, but he got so careless at last, and made so many blunders, that Mr. Brading said that the letters must be placed in more responsible hands. Be careful, and take your time over the sorting."
"There'll be a grumble then if the bags are five minutes late downstairs."
"Let them grumble. I'll tell Mr. Brading, if there is any complaint, that the post was unusually heavy."
And Mr. Bristow seated himself at his desk, and Arthur went on with his letter-sorting.
Before he had finished, a messenger came in and apologized for not having emptied the waste-paper basket that morning before the arrival of the gentlemen. He took it to the door and shot its contents into a sack, and Arthur soon followed him downstairs with the letter-bags.
The lad had been a month in his situation now, the trial month agreed upon when he first went, and that afternoon, Mr. Brading called him into his private room and asked if he thought he would like to continue in his employment, now that he knew what the work was like.
"Yes, sir; if I give satisfaction I shall be very glad to stay," said Arthur eagerly.
"Well, I think you fully bear out the character Dr. Robinson gave me of you," said Mr. Brading.
Arthur opened his eyes. "I did not know—" he began.
"I see you thought my son's recommendation, and the name you bore, would be sufficient for me. But, you see, I wanted a lad who was not only quick and accurate at figures, but also possessed other qualifications—who was steady and reliable, because the work required this. Dr. Robinson told me you had greatly improved in these particulars, as well as in your actual school-work, during the past few months. I tell you this, Murray, that you may understand exactly how things stand between us. Now the arrangement I am prepared to make is that from this time I will pay you forty pounds a year, and at the end of six months I will make it fifty, if Mr. Bristow can assure me that you are worth it."
"Thank you, sir," answered Arthur, overjoyed at the thought of being able to contribute a little more money to the family income. He would take his first two sovereigns home this evening for his four weeks' salary, for he had preferred to be paid monthly rather than receive the ten shillings every week.
Now that he could do this, and tell Annie that he would be able to bring forty pounds a year towards the household expenses, he hoped she would agree to sit down with him and look the thing fairly in the face, so as to fall in agreeably with Mr. Andrews suggestion that they should live strictly within the income he could allow them, and yet keep up the payment of the interest on the various mortgages with which the estate was encumbered.
Up to the present, Annie had maintained that it was quite impossible, considering that her mother was an invalid requiring many expensive delicacies.
The same argument was brought forward this evening when Arthur laid the two sovereigns before her, and asked if she did not think they could manage on the fifty pounds a year Mr. Andrews could let them have if he added another forty from his earnings.
"But what are you going to do for clothes, and boots, and pocket-money?" asked Molly. "Say you can let us have thirty, and keep ten for yourself. Don't you think you might manage with that, Annie?" pleaded her sister.
"I don't see why Mamma should be stinted of her little comforts. I think we ought to be willing to spend all her seventy-five pounds on these if she wants them."
"Don't you think if the cats had their food downstairs it might be managed?" suggested Arthur.
At this moment Mrs. Murray's bell rang violently, and Annie ran upstairs in a fright to see what was the matter, closely followed by Molly.
"My poor dear Tuffy, my poor dear Tuffy!" wailed Mrs. Murray. "That wicked girl downstairs has been beating her. I could hear it up here!"
"Well, Mamma, she deserved it, I am sure; and if a cat can't be taught how to behave herself, she will have to go."
"Go!" repeated Mrs. Murray in an excited tone. "What do you mean?"
"Well, Alice told me this morning that either she or the cats would have to leave, and she is such a nice, handy girl that we cannot afford to part with her."
"Now, Mamma," interrupted Arthur, "you cannot spare your pet, of course, but she would be more healthy and not give so much trouble if she was downstairs more. Let her come down to the kitchen to be fed, and have a run round two or three times a day, and then she would be glad to come back to you to be petted."
Mrs. Murray shook her head at the suggestion of this compromise at first, but Molly insisted that the cat must be killed before long if something was not done, and this brought her to reason; and she agreed before they went downstairs that in future she would not feed the cats from her plate, but let them be fed in the kitchen.
"Now we shall save a good many titbits," said Molly, "for in reckoning for Mamma we always had to consider the cats."
This was said when they were once more seated in the dining-room, considering the subject of ways and means for the future.
"This little maid you have got does not cost so much as Hannah?" commented Arthur.
"We only pay her ten pounds a year, and she does not insist that she must have this and that to cook the dinner, because she is willing to do things as we tell her; and we don't have to hear that she has never been used to 'mean, stingy ways.'" Molly laughed as she said this, but Arthur could understand how many little stings poverty had brought into the daily life of his sisters of which he knew nothing, and from which everybody agreed to shelter his mother.
"Then if Alice is so helpful to you, we must certainly try to keep her; and we must try to persuade Mamma that it would not hurt her if she came downstairs a bit too, as well as the cats."
"Oh, we'll be content with the cats at first," said Molly. "I believe I could like them a bit myself if they were more like what cats should be."
"Very well; with a little less spent on the servant and the cats, don't you think you could manage, Annie?" asked Arthur.
At length, after a good deal of consideration, she said: "Now I will tell you the whole truth of the matter. I believe, if I could pay all we owe at the shops, so that I was free to go where I liked to buy things, and did not have to pay such high prices for everything, I could manage to keep house on the income Mr. Andrews says he can allow us. But, you see, when we came here we had to deal with the same people as we did before. They expected it, because we still owed them some money, though part of the debts were paid. Then I never quite knew about things, because Hannah used to order what she liked in the way of extras. But now that I can do all that myself, I shall be able to save a good bit in the butcher's bill, and the grocer's too, and the dairy as well, for she would have new-laid eggs for everything."
"Oh, I say! Don't give us stale eggs for breakfast," said Arthur.
"As if I should think of doing such a thing!" exclaimed his sister. "But I have found out that shop eggs are about half the price I have been paying for new-laid ones, and make a pudding just as light, and so I have used them lately for cooking. Alice told me about that."
"Well done Alice! Now about these bills. If you have made up your mind to pay ready money for things, and have no more bills, I think Mr. Andrews would not mind giving us a chance to start fair and square for ourselves, and we have not had that yet."
"No, we haven't," said Molly; "and we always had to go to the most expensive shops for what we wanted, for if we ventured to go anywhere else we were sure to have the old bill we owed sent in, and the messenger who brought it was to wait for the money. Hannah knew how to manage them though. She would send a message back and an order for more things. Sometimes we did not want them, but we had to get them, to have a little peace and not let Mamma be worried."
"Poor Annie! you have had a hard time," said Arthur. "I will certainly go and see Mr. Andrews, and ask him to help us by paying off all these bills somehow. Now the best way will be to get them all together, and when I come home to-morrow I will add them up if you have got them ready, and then I shall know just how much I shall want from Mr. Andrews."
But when the next evening came, Annie had not got the bills ready. Some of the trades-people said they were in no hurry for the settlement of their account. The fact was, some of them had heard that Mr. Andrews was helping the young people, as he and his father before him had always helped the Murrays when things grew desperate. And so they thought the estate could not be so utterly exhausted as people had said it was, and they might as well keep them on their books as customers a little longer on the old methods; and Annie had been able to get only one or two small bills.
The three young people were puzzled to know what they had better do under this unexpected check, until at last Arthur decided to go and see Mr. Andrews again and ask his advice.
The lawyer was very glad to hear the errand he had come upon.
"If your father and grandfather had only made such a resolution, and acted upon it, years ago, the name of Murray would be of better fame, and you young people would not have such a hard task before you."
"I don't think we shall mind it much if we can once get clear of debt," said Arthur.
"Well, we shall see as time goes on. But if you don't feel it so hard, how will it be with your sisters when they want a new dress or a new bonnet? I know the way of the Murray ladies. It has been to send an order to the most fashionable shop, without regard to the cost or where the money was to come from to pay the bill. And I know something of the ways of these trades-people too," said the lawyer with a chuckle. "If they find out I am helping you, they will jump to the conclusion that some of us have found a gold-mine in the Murray woods, and they will smooth the way for you to get into debt. That is how things have gone on for generations, and we have got to convince these people that they are mistaken in their estimate of this last Murray, and his sisters too. Now are your sisters willing to wait for a new frock or a new bonnet until they can pay for it, and so shut off all milliners' and dressmakers bills. This is where the shoe will pinch, Mr. Arthur. But it is no good doing things by halves. If I am to set you on your feet again, I must have every bill to examine myself, and a distinct promise from Mrs. Murray that there shall be no more bills."
"I had forgotten Mamma," murmured Arthur. "You see she is so delicate she cannot bear any worry."
"Yes, yes, I know. But she is not too delicate to order a ten-guinea mantle, and bonnet to match that will cost half as much. You see I have had these people to settle with, so I know all about it, and you must not mind my speaking plainly in the matter. Don't be discouraged, my lad; I am more hopeful of seeing the Murrays on their feet again than I have ever been in my life, for you are the first, I think, who has ever dared to do an unpleasant duty because it was right, and to look things fairly in the face with a resolution to master them."
"Yes, I will if I can, for my sisters' sake,—and—and I feel sure they will help even in the dressmakers' bills. But I should be afraid to talk to Mamma about it just now."
"Well, watch for an opportunity and see what you can do. Tell your sister to get the bills in as soon as she can, and go over them carefully to make sure that she is not charged for goods she has not had. In the meanwhile ask her to pay ready money for what she has, and to go to what shop she likes to get her things. That will bring the bills in," he added, laughing.
Arthur went home to discuss the matter with his sisters, and tell them he felt sure that Mr. Andrews would see to the bills being paid, and give them a fair chance of living within their income, provided there were no milliners' and drapers' bills contracted after the present ones had been paid.
"You must agree to wait for a new dress until you can pay for it," added Arthur.
Annie looked struck with amazement that such a proposal should be made to her. "I never heard of such a thing! To ask a lady to pay for everything when she buys it!"
"Now, Annie, be reasonable. The Murrays are over head and ears in debt, I can hear all round. Don't you think it would be worth while to try and turn over a new leaf? The running into debt has caused trouble enough; you will be no less a lady if you avoid it and wait a bit longer for the new dress."
"Is that what you are going to do about the tailor's bills?" asked Annie, with something like a sneer. "You want a new suit of clothes; aren't you going to order them?"
"No, not yet," said Arthur bravely. "I shall have to take a little more care of my clothes in the future, so as to make them last longer; but what I have got must do for me for the next month or two."
Annie sighed. "Oh, how hateful poverty is!" she exclaimed.
"Yes, but we can conquer it if we only put our shoulder to the wheel resolutely. And after all, I think I would rather people said, 'How shabby that young Murray looks!' than that they should whisper, 'Eh, Murray looks smart, don't he? But you know his clothes aren't paid for; the Murrays never do pay their bills until they are obliged to.'"
"Arthur!" exclaimed Molly indignantly. "Nobody ever would say such a thing about us!"
"Oh, wouldn't they though! Don't you make any mistake, Molly. People all live in glass houses nowadays. I have had things thrown up at me at school, I can tell you. It has been hard for you girls, I know, but I have had my share too, and to end all this and be able to look people in the face, and know I don't owe anybody a penny, will be worth wearing shabby clothes for. You must keep them as tidy as you can, of course, because I should not like to look downright shabby at my work. But to look smart; well, I'll wait a bit for that, until some of the debts are paid off."
"But you can't expect Mamma to do this vulgar sort of thing," protested Annie. "She has been used to order things just when she wanted them, and she told me to-day I must write and order a new dressing-gown; she is getting so tired of wearing nothing but black."
Molly opened her eyes in amazement at this announcement. "Papa has only been dead six months!" she exclaimed.
"Yes, but Mamma would like a gray dressing-gown trimmed with black ribbon and black lace. You see it is not as though she would go out-of-doors in it, or that anyone would see her, so that it will not matter in the least, and it will please her to have a little bit of colour, you see."
"How much will it cost?" asked Arthur.
"Not more than ten pounds," answered Annie, as though such an amount as that was not to be considered beside her mother's whim to have a new dress.
"And if you send to order this, how is it to be paid for?" asked Arthur.
"Oh, the people won't mind waiting in the least!"
Arthur looked greatly disappointed. "I suppose the Murrays are born swindlers," he said bitterly. And without another word, he went out of the room, took his candle, and went up to bed.
"Oh, Annie, it was a shame of you to talk like that to poor Arthur, when he is trying so hard to set things right. Of course he is quite disheartened, and no wonder, poor boy!"
"But what are we to do? He must learn that we want dresses and must have them somehow. Mamma has always been well dressed, though she sits in her own room."
"Well, Mamma cannot have a new dress just now, and I shall tell her so to-morrow. Of course, what Mr. Andrews and Arthur are trying to do is worth twenty new dresses. If I am only a girl, I have sense enough to know that, and if you won't help him, I will."
"How are you going to do it?"
"Well, I shall tell Mamma first that it is impossible for her to have that new dress just now. And when she has got over it a bit, I shall tell her I want to see some of her pretty dresses that are put away in the big wardrobe, and I shall be sure to find one that can be altered to the present fashion. Why shouldn't a dressmaker come here to do it? It would be great fun, Annie, and I believe it would please Mamma to superintend the alterations. Don't you think my plan would be worth a trial now?"
"If you can get Mamma to agree to it, I dare say it would, but I cannot face the trouble of bringing her to think so, and so I shall leave the matter entirely to you. I haven't written to order the new dress, and I will wait and see how you get on to-morrow, but I cannot do more than that, and if the worry and upset should make Mamma ill, why, you must take the consequences."
"All right! I don't think we shall want the doctor," said Molly, "I will manage the Mater."
And the girl went off to bed full of her plan for helping her brother, and getting a new dress out of an old one.
AN INVITATION
"A LETTER for me!" exclaimed Arthur, as he took his seat at the breakfast-table next morning and saw the letter beside his plate.
But Molly came in the next minute, before the letter could be opened. "Arthur, I have thought of a plan to get over the difficulty about Mamma's new dressing-gown," she said.
"All right! Get over the difficulty if you can, and if she won't agree, tell her what Mr. Andrews says about things if you like. But if she won't be persuaded to help with us, why, I may as well give up trying, and let things drift as they have done before."
"What would happen then?" asked Molly.
"Well, the last of the property would soon be eaten up, and Mamma's little bit would be all that was left, and as that ceases with her life, I suppose you and Annie would have to go out as governesses."
"Don't be horrid, Arthur," said Annie stiffly.
"Well, it's the truth, horrid as it may be," retorted her brother.
"Read your letter while we think over the truth," said Molly.
Arthur was not long reading his missive, and a pleasant smile crossed his face as he laid it down beside his plate and said: "Jack Brading wants me to go there to dinner, and spend the evening with them, to-morrow. They dine at seven. I suppose it is all right for shirts and tie?"
"There is a dress-shirt clean in your drawer, I know, but what about your coat? You will have to get a new one, I am sure," said his elder sister.
"Quite impossible!" said Arthur. "We can't afford it."
"But, Arthur, you can't go out to dinner without a coat!" said Molly. "And you know you have grown so fast lately that it won't fit you."
"I haven't tried it yet. Go and fetch it, Molly, and if it wants altering, I'll take it with me this morning and see whether Mr. Langley can get anything done with it in our tailoring shop."
Molly ran up and fetched the coat, and Arthur put it on. "You never will be able to wear that again!" exclaimed Molly in dismay.
"Not as it is. But they may be able to alter it, and I shall take it with me when I go."
"And if it cannot be made to fit you as a gentleman's coat should fit, you must order another to be made by to-morrow night, for it would never do to go to these Bradings looking anything but a gentleman."
"And that all depends upon wearing a dress-coat, I suppose?" said Arthur.
"Oh, Arthur, it is dreadful to have to talk of things like this!" said his elder sister.
Arthur laughed and made fun of the whole thing. But when he had started with his parcel, he too began to feel that it was no laughing matter after all. For what would be thought of him if he presented himself in the Brading dining-room wearing an ordinary black cloth coat. Of course they would know that he used to wear a dress-suit among his own set, and they might take it as a downright insult if he appeared in any other.
So he resolved to put his pride in his pocket so far as the manager of the tailoring department was concerned, and tell him that it was necessary for him to wear this coat if it could possibly be made to fit him, but that he could not afford to buy another.
He went to Mr. Langley's room, and was fortunate enough to see him as he came in, and the difficulties about the coat were explained to him.
"I understand, Mr. Murray," he said.
"You won't want to wear a dress-suit very often now, and of course you don't want to spend much money on what will be of little use. You leave the coat with me," he said, when Arthur put it on that he might see how he had outgrown it. "I shall be able to tell you by dinner-time whether we can alter it for you. One word before you go. I wish you would hunt through your drawer and desk upstairs, and see if that missing letter fell in either place when you were sorting them."
"What letter?" asked Arthur.
"Oh, I forgot! It was after you had left that Mr. Brading received a letter by the evening post from Lady Mary Murray, asking about an order she had sent to me a week before, and adding that the receipt had not been sent for the money she enclosed. I have never seen the letter. I was coming up to you this morning about it."
"I have always been very careful to deliver all the letters I get," said Arthur.
"Oh, yes! We are all satisfied with the way we get our morning letters now. I was only speaking of it to Mr. Brading the other day."
"Well, I will have a hunt upstairs, and see if it has fallen down anywhere, but I am pretty sharp to see if one does fall, and I pick it up at once."
"Well, look through your desk and drawers as soon as you can, and I hope you will find it."
Arthur went up to sort the letters for that morning, and looked in his desk at once, in the hope of being able to tell Mr. Langley that he had found it, when he went down with the bag. But he was scarcely surprised that he did not see anything of it, for if it had been handy, he would have seen it before. And so he went his round and resolved to make a thorough search when he got back.
"There is a letter missing," he said to Mr. Bristow, after he had wished that gentleman "Good-morning."
"Ah! I was just going to tell you the same thing," said the accountant. "You would have heard about it last night, if you had not been in such a hurry to get away. Mr. Brading and I were locking up when a letter was brought from Lady Mary Murray."
"Yes, and won't there be a fuss if we can't find that letter she sent a week ago!" laughed Arthur. "Mr. Langley has told me all about it. She'll turn the post office upside down."
"You know the lady, then?"
"Well, she's a sort of cousin, I suppose. Her husband was a cousin of Papa's, only that branch of the family happen to be rich, and we are poor. Still, Adrian—that is her only son—has always been very chummy with me, and we have called each other cousin, and got into scrapes together, for which I got all the blame if Lady Mary found it out."
This little gossip went on while Arthur was lifting each article out of his desk, and shaking every folded sheet of paper in the hope of seeing the letter fall on the table. After the desk had been thoroughly routed out, and the things put back in their places, the table-drawer was being treated to the same thorough scrutiny when Mr. Brading opened the door.
"You are looking for that letter we heard of last night, I suppose?" he said, after greeting Mr. Bristow and Arthur as usual.
"Yes, sir, I have turned out my desk, though I don't see how a letter could get in there," said Arthur.
"What about the paper basket?" said Mr. Brading, glancing under the table.
"Oh, that is always emptied before we come! You see it is empty now," said Arthur, pulling it out.
"Yes, I see; and I must write and tell Lady Mary that her letter must have gone astray in the post office."
"Won't she make a fuss at that post office!" said Arthur, when the door closed on Mr. Brading. "I'd give sixpence to be in the fun. I'll look-out for Adrian, if he has not gone to Oxford yet, and get him to tell me all about it. My lady will dance a real Irish jig round the drawing-room when she gets Mr. Brading's letter, and then—"
"You seem to forget that we are in the midst of the fun, as you call it, and that the lady is likely to make the fuss here," said Mr. Bristow, not without some amusement himself, for he had heard of this impulsive Irish lady before to-day.
"No such luck, I am afraid," said Arthur. "But I'll try and persuade my sister to call and see her to-morrow, and then we shall hear all about it."
"Very well, we must let that do for the present, then, and see to our work," said Mr. Bristow.
And Arthur took the hint, and settled down to his usual employment until dinner-time. The incident of the missing letter had almost passed from his mind when he found himself in the tailoring department once more and Mr. Langley asked him if he had been able to find the letter.
"Oh! I beg your pardon for not coming to tell you that I have turned out everything I have got up there, and cannot find it. Can you do anything with my coat?" he asked anxiously.
"Yes, the foreman thinks he can make a very good job of it. He would like you to go to the workroom as you return from dinner, and then he will be able to fit it on you. He thinks he can make it a very good fit. I wish we could trace that letter, though," he added in a more serious tone. "Lady Mary will—"
"Don't I know it!" laughed Arthur, interrupting him. "Won't she make them sit up at the post office when she hears we haven't got her precious letters!"
Mr. Langley looked at Arthur in dumb amazement. "This is no laughing matter for me, Murray," he said. "You forget there was money in the lost letter, as well as an order, and she is one of our most particular customers."
"Oh, yes, I know her!" said Arthur lightly. Then, seeing how serious Mr. Langley looked, he added: "Of course I am very sorry the letter cannot be found, and I hope it will turn up in one of Lady Mary's pockets. But I don't see why we should trouble our heads with it. The post office must have lost it, if ever she posted it, and it wouldn't be the first time she has left a letter in her pocket instead of putting it into the pillar-box. Don't worry, Mr. Langley; there is no accounting for what Lady Mary may do."
When Arthur fitted his coat on, a little later in the day, he was greatly pleased with it. They had been able to lengthen the sleeves and let it out at the seams, so that it fitted him as easily and comfortably as a new coat could have done, and he went home in the evening to tell his sisters that he had found Molly's plan of turning old clothes into new ones had answered admirably.
Molly clapped her hands with delight at the announcement. "I am glad I thought of it," she said, "for we shall be able to please Mamma with a smart 'new-old' dressing-gown at the cost of a few shillings at the most. Really, it is quite interesting to be poor, when it sets your wits to work to make the best of things you have got, instead of buying new ones."
But her elder sister shook her head at this heresy. "It may please you, Molly, for the present; but wait until our clothes get very shabby and we want a change from those we have been wearing so long," she said in a serious tone.
"Well, it will be time enough, as you say, when we have got to do it, so we won't begin worrying over it now. I am just taking a little extra care of my best dresses, to make sure that they look nice as long as possible, that I may not want new ones yet awhile. What are you laughing at me for, Arthur?" she suddenly asked.
"I am not laughing at you, Molly, but at something that happened at the shop."
"Oh, Arthur, don't call it a shop!" interrupted his elder sister crossly. "Say office if you like, we shall know what you mean. I expect Aunt Mary will go on when she hears what you have done."
"It is about Lady Mary I was laughing," said Arthur.
He never would call her Aunt Mary, for the two seemed to take a delight in annoying each other when they met, and Mr. Murray had never tried to smooth matters between them. She, too, was quite as prejudiced against him, because he was generally the ringleader in the mischief her son had often got into when they were both younger. In her anger over some escapade that had caused her annoyance, she had told Arthur she would never own him as a relative again, and he had retorted that he would never call her aunt any more; and both had kept their word, and harboured a dislike for each other ever since.
So Arthur recounted with great glee that a letter sent by Lady Mary, with some money in it, had been lost in the post, and then he asked Molly to imagine what the scene would be like when she went to the local post office and demanded her money back.
Molly laughed and mimicked the lady, and she and Arthur were trying to outdo each other in imitating her mannerisms when Annie suddenly said: "You stupid things, cannot you see that this may be very serious for Arthur? He has to open the letter-bag at Brading's, and she might—they might—there is no telling what people might say."
"Pigs might fly," suggested the irreverent Molly.
"Aunt Mary might say spiteful things about you, Arthur, if she heard that you had the handling of her letters."
"Ah, she might! But how is she to hear? I have not seen Adrian for a long time. I expect he has gone to Oxford long ago."
"I have not seen him, or Aunt Mary either, for some time," said Annie. "Perhaps she has heard that you have gone to that shop and is quite offended about it," suggested Annie.
"Let her be offended then," said Arthur.
"Well, I am not so fond of flying in people's faces as you are," retorted Annie.
"All right! Go and see Lady Mary to-morrow, and tell her we are all greatly concerned that she has not been to see us lately, and then perhaps she will tell you what she is going to do to those careless post office people for losing her letter with money in it."
There was another explosion of laughter over this, but Annie shook her head at the offered suggestion.
"I don't want to have to tell her what you have done, Arthur," she said; "I would rather she heard it from other people first, and had got over it a bit before I saw her."
"What nonsense, Annie; as if Lady Mary cares two straws what happened to me! We renounced all relationship to each other long ago, and as long as Adrian doesn't come here too often she won't trouble herself about where I go, or what I do; never fear."
"Well, I don't want to go to see her just now. And I do wish you had been more careful of her letter, if it is you who have lost it."
"You need not be so cross, Annie," said Molly. "I am sure Arthur would not have lost the letter if he could have helped it."
"And it has to be proved first that the letter ever passed through my hands," said Arthur in a more serious tone.
"Don't let it trouble you, Arthur," said Molly soothingly.
"It isn't likely I shall," replied Arthur scornfully. "Nobody but Annie would think of blaming me for such a thing."
And Arthur went up to his mother's room whistling a lively air and full of pleasant anticipations of seeing some of his old friends and school-fellows the next evening, for he had heard incidentally that several other lads besides himself were invited to spend the evening at Mr. Brading's house.
AN UNEXPECTED MEETING
ARTHUR was received by his friend and Mrs. Brading most kindly and courteously, without any tinge of either patronage or condescension, which some words of his elder sister had almost led him to expect.
He found that Mr. Brading, if he was not to be reckoned among the county families, was a gentleman in his own home as well as at business, and Mrs. Brading was all that a lady should be in the reception of her guests and the ordering of her household. He found his friend's two sisters were much like his own: well-mannered, quietly-dressed girls, who received him as their brother's friend in a perfectly natural manner, so that he speedily felt at ease and at home among them.
They were all assembled in the drawing-room, waiting for the dinner-gong to sound, when the door opened and the servant announced "Mr. Adrian Murray."
"I didn't know you knew my Cousin Ted," exclaimed Arthur, turning to Jack Brading.
"It is only a short acquaintance," answered the lad; "but you see our grounds and those of Lady Mary Murray meet at the farther end, and so, of course, we met too."
"Hullo, Arthur!" exclaimed the new-comer at this point, "I never expected to see you here, old fellow."
"And I certainly did not expect to see you. Why, where have you been all this time? I made sure you had gone to Oxford after all."
"No, I have not gone yet. I'll tell you about it later on," he added in a lower tone, for just then the gong sounded again, and there was a stir of preparation to proceed to the dining-room.
The sight of the well-appointed dinner-table, with its gleaming silver and glittering glass, lifted Arthur back to the old life once more, and all the disappointments, struggles, and hardships of the past six months were forgotten for the time. He talked and laughed as though he had known the Bradings all his life, for Jack's youngest sister, who sat beside him, reminded him of his own sister Molly, and very soon he was telling Miss Ethel Brading all about her, and they were making merry over some of Molly's escapades when they had been out together.
"Arthur Murray is a nice boy, Papa," said the young lady when dinner was over. "I only hope he can dance, and will take the trouble to make himself as agreeable to the rest as he has been all dinner-time. You know, we are just going to have a few dances by and by."
"Oh, are you?" said the gentleman, pinching her cheek. "Well, I hope you will remember that we are business people and cannot afford to be up till daylight."
"No, Papa, we know your rule, and have arranged to break up about Cinderella time."
Meanwhile the lads had strayed out into the garden, for it was not quite dark, and the elders of the party wanted to indulge in a smoke. Adrian Murray drew Arthur away from the rest that they might have a chat together.
"Have a smoke, old fellow," he said as he drew out a case of cigarettes and offered one to Arthur.
"No, thank you, I haven't begun it yet," said Arthur. "One of the last talks I had with Papa was about smoking, and I promised him I would not begin tobacco until I was twenty at least. He told me he believed it had done him a great deal of harm. He began the habit early by way of killing time and—"
"Yes, that's just it. What has a fellow got to do in a dull hole like this? The Mater says seventeen is too early to begin the weed, but I tell her she knows nothing about it." Adrian had broken in to say this while he was getting a match to light his cigarette.
"When are you going to Oxford, old fellow?" asked Arthur. "Of course there is no chance for me now," he added.
"Beastly nuisance, isn't it?" said Adrian, puffing away at his cigarette, "I thought we might have gone together, and had some good fun and seen something of life."
"But you are going, aren't you?" said Arthur.
His companion lazily blew out a few rings of smoke, and then said slowly, "Yes, I expect I shall when the Mater will shell out enough to do the thing properly. I'm not going to live there like a hermit, and I've told her so. Lady Mary Murray's son is not going to play second fiddle to anybody at Oxford, and at present we can't agree as to what would be a fair allowance for expenses over and above actual necessities. What should she know about it? She was brought up in her father's tumble-down Irish castle, where they lived on potatoes and milk half the year, and ran wild among the cotters' children, and when they were in Dublin it wasn't much better."
"But I say, they grew a fine race of boys and girls on potatoes and milk," said Arthur, giving the young fellow a dig in the side, as he used to do in the old days when reminding him of his diminutive stature.
Arthur was nearly a head taller than his cousin, although he was two years younger, while Lady Mary, his mother, was nearly six feet in height, and as commanding in her manner as a grenadier.
"Shut up that!" said Adrian irritably. "We are getting beyond mere boys now, and I mean to let people know it too." And he drew himself up to the full height of all his inches.
"I say, it was a pretty good dinner they gave us to-night," he said the next minute.
"Yes, it was quite like old times to me," answered Arthur; "and to have you nearly opposite me again seemed to bring the old days back."
"Yes, your father knew how to keep a good table," remarked Adrian. "I wish my mother did. She says it would be waste to have more than a plain joint and potatoes, with only two to eat it. I don't believe she'd have a joint if I wasn't there, and she knows I'd kick up a jolly row if there was only potatoes. Of course she thinks I could live in the same style if I went up to Oxford, and I don't mean to try. She's got plenty of money now, why shouldn't she spend it? She's got a little scheme in her head to make a good deal more of it by and by. But I tell her she has enough for her speculations. She can afford to carry out the plans she has set her heart upon, and send me to Oxford as well; but if I can't go as a gentleman should, I won't go at all!"
Arthur laughed. He was used to this kind of talk from his cousin, who was generally at war with his mother over something or other. Arthur, of course, thought Lady Mary unreasonable in her treatment of Adrian, and may have urged him into rebellion in the boyish days, when they used to get into scrapes together. But the experience of the past few months had sobered him a good deal, and now he thought that it was a pity the mother and son could not agree better, and he said so:
"You have no father, old fellow, and naturally your mother will look to you for comfort and—"
"Will she! Then she'll have to make me a bit comfortable first," fumed Adrian. "I tell you she keeps me so short of pocket-money that sometimes I haven't sixpence to call my own, and when I kick up a row, she tells me there will be plenty by and by, when she has been able to carry out her plans. 'Hang your plans!' I said to her. 'I want money now, and money I must have.' And after talking to her like this, how much do you think she gave me? Five shillings!"
For answer Arthur burst into a roar of laughter at Adrian's tragic manner, and his assumption of manly indignation.
"I don't see what there is to laugh at," he said in a half-offended tone. "I only wish you were tied to my mother's apron-string as I am, and then you'd know what it is to be short of money, and grudged every penny you spend."
"Well, I don't get much, I can tell you," said Arthur.
He was just about to tell his cousin what employment he had undertaken when they were interrupted by a voice calling, "Mr. Murray! Mr. Murray!" And the younger Miss Brading came towards them.
"It might be our Molly herself," said Arthur, speaking in an undertone as he turned to walk towards the speaker.
"Bother the girl!" muttered Adrian. "Why can't she let us have our smoke in peace?" and he held back as Arthur went to meet the young lady.
"We are going to have a dance, Mr. Murray. Can you come and help us?" she said.
"To be sure we can. Come along, Ted! That is my cousin's old name among us," he explained, as he waited for Adrian to join them.
"I don't care much about dancing," said that young gentleman. "I think, Arthur, you must do duty for me."
"Oh, that be hanged! Come and shake yourself out of the megrims; it will do you more good than smoking and brooding here over your wrongs." And Arthur tried to drag him to the steps leading up to the balcony, upon which the drawing-room opened.
He allowed himself to be taken up the steps without much protest, but when he reached a chair, he dropped into it, and declared he would not stir another step to please anybody.
"I hate dancing," he said, "and I don't see why I should be expected to fag myself to please a parcel of shopkeepers."
Ethel Brading had gone into the drawing-room, and Arthur hoped she had not heard what was said, but he went up to his cousin, and, speaking in a lower tone, he asked what he meant by accepting Mr. Brading's hospitality, and then behaving like that. "Don't be a cad, Adrian! I hate such meanness," protested Arthur. "What has come to you that you cannot behave like a gentleman?"
"I behave according to the company I am in," sullenly muttered the young fellow.
"Very well, I won't talk to a cad," said Arthur. And he turned on his heel and went into the drawing-room.
In a few minutes he was whirling round in a waltz, and the vexation he felt at his cousin's behaviour was well-nigh forgotten. When, in the next dance, another was wanted to make up a set, he suddenly thought of Adrian, and went outside to ask him to come in and join them.
But to his surprise the balcony was empty, every chair was vacant.
"Surely the fellow has not gone home so early as this!" he exclaimed, as he looked over into the garden, trying to descry the red glow of Adrian's cigarette in the evening dusk. But there was nothing to be seen, and nothing to break the silence that had descended upon the garden, and so he surmised that his cousin must have gone home.
As he was returning to the drawing-room he met Mr. Brading and Jack, the latter having come in search of him.
"Here, we want you," he said, seizing him by the arm.
"Have you seen my cousin Adrian?" he asked. "I left him sitting here, and we want him now to make up that set of dancers."
"Never mind, somebody else has come in, and we are waiting for you." And Jack led him to his place, and dancing recommenced.
No one saw anything of Adrian Murray for the rest of the evening, and Arthur scarcely thought of him again. The young people kept their word, and made it a small and early dance, and when the clock struck twelve, Arthur was walking briskly towards home with another school-fellow who lived in the same neighbourhood.
Both agreed that they had had a very good time, and had enjoyed themselves very much. To Arthur the whole thing had been as a draught of wine, encouraging him to persevere in the task he had set himself. He felt more hopeful that he might yet see his sisters and mother once more able to take their proper place in the world, and live as the Bradings lived, beyond the care and anxiety of making ends meet, which had marred all their lives for the past few years.
He found Molly sitting up for him, and when he closed the garden gate she heard the click of the latch, and had the street door open by the time he reached it.
"Don't make a noise," she whispered, "for fear of waking Mamma."
"Thank you for waiting up for me, Molly. I have had such a jolly time! The Bradings are such nice people."
"And they treated you nicely?" asked Molly.
"Bless your little woolly head, why shouldn't they treat me nicely?" said Arthur, quite forgetting his own sensitiveness on this point earlier in the evening.
"Well, I think it would have been awfully mean of them if they had not done so. But still, as Annie says, I suppose you are one of their clerks, and there was no telling what they might do."
"No," replied Arthur, "nor yet what anybody else might do. I felt quite ashamed of Adrian to-night."
"Adrian? Aunt Mary's Adrian?" exclaimed Molly. "You don't mean to say he was there!"
"Yes I do. He went for the sake of the good dinner, according to his own account, and then behaved like a cad afterwards. I felt as though I should like to give him a good thrashing again, as I did when he threw you out of the swing. Do you remember, Molly?"
"Shall I ever forget it? And Aunt Mary when she ran out and saw him! I don't think she has ever liked me since." And Molly laughed under her breath at the recollection of the scene.
But the next minute Annie appeared in dressing-gown and slippers.
"You naughty children!" she said in a whisper. And then the next minute she said anxiously: "Arthur, have you had a pleasant time?"
"Splendid!" replied Arthur warmly. "It was such a nice dinner-party—no old fogies and frost, but just a comfortable lot of fellows and girls who didn't mind talking. Oh, Annie, I am going to work and save until we can have our old things round us again! It was so like the old times at home! Yes, I think it has done me good to have a taste of the old days again, and we had a jolly dance after the dinner. A small and early, of course, or I should not be home now. But that, it seems, is the rule, except at Christmas or some special time."
"I am glad it has passed off so well. I don't think I shall mind it so much for you now, Arthur," she added. And then she turned out the gas, gave Arthur his candle, and they all went up to bed.
"Don't let me sleep late in the morning," whispered Arthur, as he bade his sister good-night. "I would rather be there ten minutes earlier than five minutes late to-morrow."
"All right! I'll call you," answered Molly. "I know how you feel about that. If I was clever like Annie, I could say it, but I am woolly-headed, and the right words won't come when I want them."
"Molly, how can you be so unkind as to keep Arthur up talking when you both ought to be asleep! Of course he wants to be up at the usual time in the morning, and how can he, if you keep him here talking nonsense!"
And this time, Annie took care to see that both Molly and Arthur went to their rooms before she returned to hers, for she felt very strongly that Arthur must not be late at business the next morning, whatever it might cost them to get up.
LADY MARY
THE following morning Arthur was in Mr. Brading's room, which adjoined the accountant's department, when one of the messengers brought a card and handed it to Mr. Brading.
A frown contracted the gentleman's face as his eye fell upon the name it bore. "I wish she had chosen some other time," Arthur heard him mutter under his breath. But to the messenger who was waiting, he said: "Show Lady Mary Murray to my room downstairs, and tell her I will be with her immediately."
Then he concluded his business with Arthur as quickly as he could, and went down after the messenger.
"Good-morning, my lady!" he said, as he entered the room where Lady Mary was standing as erect as a dart. She was nearly six feet in height, with high, bony, prominent cheek-bones and small eager dark eyes, and she stood in the middle of the small waiting-room as Mr. Brading entered, looking anything but pleasant or amiable.
"Pray be seated," said the gentleman, drawing forward a large easy-chair.
But she pushed it aside with her foot. "I have no time to waste, Mr. Brading," she said. "I have come to know what you mean by sending me such a note as you did yesterday? I sent you a cheque for five pounds more than a week ago in payment of my account, and have received no receipt for the money?"
"Because the letter has never reached us, and consequently we have not had the cheque," said Mr. Brading, looking keenly at her.
They stood facing each other for a minute in silence, and then Lady Mary said: "Then one of your servants must have stolen the letter!"
"No, indeed, that is not possible, I think. Will, you tell me when and where the letter was posted, and which of your servants took it to the post."
"It was not a servant at all, but my son took it for me, as he was just going out, early in the evening."
"Then it should have reached us the next morning, by the first post, in fact. Now I will tell you what our arrangements with the post office are, that you may see how impossible it is that the letter could have reached us. The first post is always the heaviest—"
"I can't stay listening to all this rigmarole! I tell you the letter has been lost here. My son says he put it into the letter-box, for I asked him, and I have been there—to the post office, I mean—and they say the letter must have been brought here, and here it must be found!"
The lady had broken in impatiently upon Mr. Brading's speech, and now moved restlessly from one foot to the other as she demanded: "Who receives the letters here for you? Whoever it is, he must be the thief."
"Your nephew, Mr. Arthur Murray, receives and distributes all the morning letters," answered the gentleman calmly.
"Who? What?" almost screamed the lady. "I have no nephew nearer than Lismore Castle, in Ireland. What impostor has dared to come to you in my name?"
She was fairly dancing now, what Arthur would have called an "Irish jig."
Mr. Brading could scarcely preserve his gravity as he said:
"There has been no imposture, my lady. Mr. Arthur Murray is a friend of my son's, and a short time ago, he entered my employment as an assistant to my accountant, and it is part—"
"Arthur Murray in your employment! No wonder I have lost my letter, especially as it happens to have money in it! Send for the police at once, and I will give him in charge for stealing my cheque!"
"Indeed, my lady, I cannot do that on the evidence I have at present," said Mr. Brading, after a pause.
He was overwhelmed with astonishment that she should make such a charge against one of her own family. He had mentioned Arthur's name in connection with the affair because he thought it would convince her that the missing letter had not reached him, and that it must have been lost or mislaid through some other individual. But to hear her urge that the police should be called in to arrest Arthur was a shock to him, and after a pause, he wondered whether he had done wisely in placing Arthur in such a responsible position.
Lady Mary did not stop to consider what she said or what she did. Her Irish blood was roused, and she kept up her jig as she went on: "That boy would not mind what he did! I know him, if you don't, and have suffered from him and his ways too much to put up with him quietly! Of course he would not mind taking my money, poor as they are now! Why did you let him come here? Why didn't you tell him to go to some other town for a situation? Did you know they were so poor that any money would be a temptation to that boy? And I tell you he has done pretty much as he likes all his life!"
Mr. Brading looked at the angry lady in wondering surprise. But at last he managed to say: "You seem to forget, my lady, that it was no business of mine to tell him to go elsewhere in search of a situation. I needed an assistant in the accountant's department, and Arthur Murray was recommended to me as being clever and careful at book-keeping, and I was willing to give him a trial."
"Although you must have known that he has been brought up in such habits of luxury and extravagance that the Murrays, that branch of the family at least, have not paid their debts for years! So that the salary you would be likely to pay him would never suffice for all his fancied wants, and he would help himself to other people's money of course!"
"I do not think you are justified, my lady, in making such charges as these against your nephew," said Mr. Brading. And he was about to say more, when Lady Mary turned upon him, white with anger.
"How dare you call him my nephew!" she protested. "He is no relation of mine. My late husband was cousin to his father, and I have good cause to regret even this slight kinship. For nearly all the money left me by my first husband has gone to these Murrays. And now to be robbed—!"
"I beg your pardon, Lady Mary, but I cannot allow these charges to be made unless they can be proved."
"Prove them, then, or I will! I tell you, Mr. Brading, I am not going to lose this cheque without making a stir about it, and discovering the thief! If my cheque is not satisfactorily accounted for by the end of the week, I shall put the matter into the hands of the police." And with this threat, Lady Mary walked out of the room, leaving Mr. Brading greatly disturbed.
Busy as he was that morning, he sat there for nearly half an hour thinking over this incident of the lost letter in all its possibilities. He did not like to suspect Arthur Murray of taking the cheque. But what was he to think, especially after what Lady Mary had said about him? Surely she must know him better than most people, and was she likely to make such a charge against one bearing her own name, unless she had good ground for her suspicion?
The thought of this being true was anything but welcome to Mr. Brading, for he liked the lad independently of his being his son's friend. The report he had received concerning him from Mr. Bristow as to the way in which he did his work, considering his youth, had pleased him very much, so that he had felt glad to hear that Arthur was satisfied with his position, and willing to stay on.
"If this arrangement had not been entered into, the position would not have been so difficult," thought Mr. Brading, as he sat there and pondered and wondered what step he ought to take in the matter, and considering Lady Mary's threat to call in the police. This was a position he had not thought of, and it would involve business aspects of the affair that might be even more unpleasant. He would far rather take the loss upon himself than have his name brought forward in a police court case.
He was still thinking and wondering how he should find his way out of the tangle, when he was called upon to receive another customer, and the affair had to be put aside. He tried not to think of it again that day, for it had seriously hindered him already.
He stayed that evening until after Arthur had gone, on purpose to have a few words with the chief accountant, Mr. Bristow.
"What do you think of young Murray now?" he asked rather abruptly, much to Mr. Bristow's surprise, for he had had some talk with Mr. Brading about Arthur's capabilities for business only a short time before, and he wondered at being questioned about him again.
"I am worried about this missing letter," explained Mr. Brading. "Lady Mary Murray has been to see me to-day, and she gives the lad a very indifferent character, and thinks he may have been tempted to use her cheque by reason of their present poverty and the habits of luxury and self-indulgence in which he has been brought up. We know well enough the character they bear for not paying their debts, and this in itself is likely to undermine those principles of honesty and straightforward dealing that every lad should be reared in. What do you think of it?" asked Mr. Brading.
Mr. Bristow shook his head. "I never even glanced at the possibility of young Murray stealing the letter. Why should he pitch upon this particular one? There have been plenty of others containing money, and I have heard of no others being missed. Have you received any other complaint?" asked the accountant.
"No, I have not, and I hate to think the lad may be guilty of this theft. And yet how else are we to account for the disappearance of the letter?"
"Letters have been lost in their transit through the post before now," said Mr. Bristow, "and I should be more disposed to think that our letter has gone that way than that Arthur Murray has had anything to do with it. He and Lady Mary evidently dislike each other, from what he said here when it was discovered that the letter was lost, and that may have had something to do with her giving him an indifferent character for honesty."
"Well, to tell you the truth, I am at a loss to know what to think. My lady was very angry, for she danced."
Mr. Bristow could not help laughing a little at this point, in spite of the seriousness of the subject under discussion.
"I beg your pardon for laughing, but she seems to have carried out pretty accurately what young Murray said would happen when she went to the post office to enquire for the missing letter, and wished he could be present to witness the performance."
"I wish he had been there to hear what Lady Mary said. It would have made my task a good deal easier, and I should have known better how to go to work to clear up this mystery. You should have heard the rich Irish brogue into which she lapsed as she denounced the lad!"
"That would be enough in itself to prove that she had not thought of what she was saying, and as each seems to be prejudiced against the other, I should be inclined to think she had let her anger and her prejudice have their way when speaking of the matter," put in Mr. Bristow.
"I am inclined to take the same view, and so I think perhaps, for the present, it will be best to say very little about the affair. But in the meanwhile I should like you to keep a sharp eye on young Murray, and if you see anything suspicious in his conduct or manner let me know at once. Lady Mary threatens to put the matter into the hands of the police, but I don't think she will do that, considering that it is one of her own name and family whose character is impugned."
Meanwhile, as Arthur walked home that evening, he almost ran against Adrian Murray, who started when he saw Arthur, but did not hold out his hand to respond to his greeting.
"What's the matter, old fellow?" Arthur asked in some surprise. "I haven't got the small-pox, you need not be afraid of me."
"I don't know so much about that," replied Adrian, trying to assume an injured air. "You're a pretty cunning fellow, and I dare say you think you are very clever, but you are found out at last."
"Found out! What do you mean? What was there to find out?" said Arthur in a tone of surprise.
"Well, you'll hear soon enough, I expect, for the Mater has found it out, and—"
"But what has she found out?" asked Arthur impatiently.
"Why, she has been down to your shop. I never thought, when I met you at Brading's the other day, that you were in the shop there, and you took good care you never told me."
"Well, now, the fact is I did not get a chance, for you walked off home so early. I was just beginning to tell you while we were in the garden, but before I could get it out we were asked to go in to dance, and there was no other opportunity to speak to you quietly."
"Well, you've lost your chance then. If you had told me I might have been able to talk the Mater over and bring her round to let you stay there, if it was your fancy to be a shopman and advertise the fact to everybody. But, now—well, my Lady Mary is simply raving over it, and she declares she will not have our family name disgraced on her own door-step!"
Arthur laughed mockingly. "Our family name!" he repeated. "How long have you been a Murray? Thomas Wilkins, your father, was not a Murray, but Wilkins, a retired pork butcher or sausage-maker or pork-pie manufacturer. You may not remember it, I dare say, but my father knew all about it, and so do a good many other people."
"I don't care who knows it! I have a perfect right to the name of Murray. Lady Mary took care of that for me, as she has taken care of most things, or she wouldn't be as rich now as she is."
"Nobody disputes her riches," said Arthur, "but money is not everything, and I should like to know how she is going to drive me out of the town, if I don't choose to go. Fairmead suits me very well, and I am not at all sure that it will please me to go anywhere else, and you may tell her ladyship what I say if you like."
"Don't be a fool! Don't you know that my mother could crush you all as easily as I could crush a moth. Ah! and she'll do it, too, if you cross her in this. I tell you none of her family has ever been engaged in trade—"
"Except your father, and perhaps he had done with the pies and sausages before you were born," interrupted Arthur, still in the same mocking tone.
"Well, if you will be a fool, and not only scorch yourself, but put the rest of them at home in the fire, why, you must do it, I suppose. I cannot help you any more. I cannot help myself. When the Mater has set her heart upon a thing, you may bet she'll have it somehow, by hook or by crook, and it's no good standing out against her."
"I see. That's where the shoe pinches, and you want to frighten me with the same story. What is it now, old fellow?" said Arthur in a half-pitying, half-bantering tone. "It is easy to see my lady has been sitting upon you over something. What's the row?"
"Well, I'm going to Oxford after all, almost at the Mater's price! I didn't mean to give in for less than another hundred a year, but she says if I don't go, she will move to Dublin and make her home at Lismore with the old Earl of Duncarron and Lady Bridget, and I have had enough of that to last me a lifetime. Besides, she is kicking up no end of a row down at your place about a letter the post office have lost; and I hate rows, and since this began, there's no peace for anybody. So I'm off at the end of this week, and if you know what's good for yourself, you'll be off too, and serve reels of cotton at some other shop than old Brading's. Shall I tell the Mater you're going?"
"Not a bit of it," answered Arthur; "it suits me to stay at Brading's, and there I shall stop whether the dragon likes it or not, and you may tell her so if you like."
And Arthur walked away whistling. But when he reached the corner of the street, he dug his hands deep into his pockets, and forgot his whistle as he pondered over Adrian's words, wondering what they could mean, and whether there was any truth in the assertion that Lady Mary had him and his in her power, and could drive them out of Fairmead if he did not go willingly.
"Oh, dear! Those dreadful debts of the Pater's! It is enough to make a fellow say he would rather live on dry bread than go in debt for butter. I am sure Papa would never have brought all the trouble upon us if he had thought about it. Now I wonder what Aunt Mary could do, or whether the dragon is trying to bluff me as she has bluffed old Ted! How she hates his names of Ted and Tom! I do think she has been worse than ever over it the last year or two."