Chapter Thirty One.

Chapter Thirty One.Another Trouble.It was, some will say, a childish, old-fashioned way of keeping cash, but all the same it was the plan adopted by Hazel, who every week dropped the amounts she had received from the school pence, after changing the coppers into silver, through the large slit of an old money-box that had been given her when a child. It was a plain, oak-wood box, with ordinary lock and key, and the slit at the top was large enough to admit of each week’s shillings and sixpences being tied up in note-paper, in the ladylike way adopted by the fair sex—that is to say, a neat packet is made and tied up with cotton. After the tying up Hazel used to put the amount it contained upon the packet, enter the said amount in a memorandum-book, drop the packet through the slit, and lock up the drawer in which the box reposed.During the early portion of her stay at Plumton, as previously shown, Mr Chute went on changing the pence for her from copper to silver, but after a time Hazel felt a certain amount of diffidence in charging the schoolmaster with the task, and made an arrangement with the grocer and draper of the place, who readily made the exchange.Then there was the monthly payment to the blanket fund, which was also placed in the same receptacle, after being duly noted; and there were times when Hazel thought that it would be a good thing when she could get rid of an amount that was rather a burden to her, and she even went so far as to think that she would ask Mr William Forth Burge to take charge of the amount, but for certain reasons she declined.It was no uncommon thing for Hazel to run very short of money for housekeeping purposes, and several times over it would have been a great convenience to have made use of a portion of the school pence and replaced it from her salary; but she forbore, preferring that the sums she held in charge should remain untouched as they had come into her hands.After expecting for what seemed a very great length of time, she at last received a beautifully written but ill-spelt letter from one of the churchwardens, requesting her to send him in a statement of the amounts received for the children’s pence, and to be prepared to hand over the money at a certain appointed time.The letter came like a relief to her as she sat at dinner; and upon Mrs Thorne asking, in a somewhat ill-used tone, who had been writing that she was not to know of, her daughter smilingly handed her the letter.“It was such a thorough business letter, dear, that I thought you would not care to read it.”But Mrs Thorne took it, read it through, and passed it back without a word.“I think you seem a good deal better, dear,” said Hazel, smiling.“Indeed, I am not, child,” replied Mrs Thorne sharply. “I never felt worse. My health is terrible: Plumton does not agree with me, and I must have a change.”“A change, dear?” said Hazel, sighing.“Yes. It is dreadful this constant confinement in a little poking place. I feel sometimes as if I should be stifled. Good gracious, Hazel! what could you be thinking about to come and live in a town like this? Let’s go, my dear, and find some occupation more congenial to your spirit. I cannot bear to go on seeing how you are wasted here.”“My dear mother!” exclaimed Hazel wonderingly.“I repeat it, Hazel—I repeat it, my dear!” exclaimed Mrs Thorne excitedly. “You are not fit for this place, and the wretched people down here do not appreciate you. Let us go away at once.”“But, my dear mother, it is impossible. I should, even if I thought it best, be obliged to give some months’ notice; and besides, it would be ungrateful to Mr and Miss Burge, and to the vicar, who is most kind and considerate.”“Oh yes; I know all that,” whimpered Mrs Thorne. “But all the same, we must go.”“Must go, mother dear?”“Yes, child—must go. It is a cruelty to you to keep you here.”“But I have been so well, mother; and I seem to be winning the confidence of the people, and the children begin to like me.”“Oh yes—yes—yes; of course they are bound to like you, Hazel, seeing what a slave you make yourself to them. But all the same, my dear, I protest against your stopping here any longer.”“My dear mother,” said Hazel, rising and going to her side to bend down and kiss her, “pray—pray don’t be so unreasonable.”“Unreasonable?—unreasonable? Am I to be called unreasonable for advising you for your benefit? For shame, Hazel—for shame!”“But my dear mother, suppose I accede to your wishes and decide to leave: where are we to go? I should have to seek for another engagement.”“And you would get it, Hazel. Thousands of school managers would be only too glad to obtain your services.”Hazel shook her head and smiled.“No, mother dear; you are too partial. Engagements are not so plentiful as that. Think it over, and you will look at the matter differently. We have not the means at our command to think of moving now.”“But we must leave, Hazel, and at once,” cried Mrs Thorne excitedly. “I cannot and I will not stay here.”“But it would be unreasonable and foolish, dear, to think of doing so under our present circumstances. For the children’s sake—for Percy’s sake, pray be more considerate. We must not think of it at present. After a time, perhaps, I may have the offer of a better post and the change may be such a one as you will like. Come, dear, try and be content a little longer, and all will be right in the end.”“Hazel,” cried Mrs Thorne angrily, “I insist upon your giving up this school at once!”“My dear mother!”“Now, no excuses, Hazel I say I insist upon your giving up this school at once, and I will be obeyed. Do you forget that I am your mother? Is my own child to rise up in rebellion against me? How dare you? How dare you, I say?”“But my dear mother, if we decide to leave, where are we to go? Where is the money to pay for our removal? You know as well as I do that, in spite of my care, we are some pounds in the tradespeople’s debt.”“Now she throws that in my face, when I have worked so hard to make both ends meet, and cut and contrived over the housekeeping, thinking and striving and straining, and now this is my reward!”“I do not blame you, dear,” said Hazel sadly; “I only think it was a pity that you should have ordered goods for which we had not the money to pay.”“And was I—a lady—to go on living in the mean, sordid, penurious way you proposed, Hazel? Shame upon you! Where is your respect for your wretched, unhappy parent?”It was in Hazel’s heart to say, half angrily, “Oh, mother, dear mother, pray do not go on so!” but she simply replied, “I know, dear, that it is very hard upon you, but we are obliged to live within our means.”“Yes: thanks to you, Hazel,” retorted her mother. “I might be living at ease, as a lady should, if my child were considerate, and had not given her heart to selfishness and a downright direct love of opposition to her parent’s wishes.”“Dear mother,” cried Hazel piteously, “indeed I do try hard to study you in everything.”“It ought to want no trying, Hazel. It ought to be the natural outcome of your heart if you were a good and affectionate child. Study me, indeed! See what you have brought me to! Did I ever expect to go about in these wretched, shabby, black things, do you suppose—I—I, who had as many as two dozen dresses upon the hooks in my wardrobe at one time? Oh, Hazel, if you would conquer the stubbornness of that heart!”“My dear mother, I must go and put away the dinner-things; but I do not like to leave you like this.”“Oh, pray go, madam; and follow your own fancies to the top of your bent. I am only your poor, weak mother, and what I say or do matters very little. Never mind me, I shall soon be dead and cold in my grave.”“Oh, my dear mother, pray, pray do not talk like this!”“And all I ask is, that there may be a simple headstone placed there, with my name and age; and, if it could possibly be managed, and not too great an expense and waste of money for so unimportant a person, I should like the words to be cut deeply in the marble,—or, no, I suppose it would be only stone, common stone—just these simple words: ‘She never forgot that she was a lady.’”Here Mrs Thorne sighed deeply, and began to strive to extricate herself from her child’s enlacing arms.“No, no, no, Hazel; don’t hold me—it is of no use. I can tell, even by the way you touch me, that you have no affection left for your poor suffering mother.”“How can you say that dear?” said Hazel firmly.“Nor yet in your words, even. Oh, Hazel, I never thought I should live to be spoken to like this by my own child!”“My dear mother, I am ready to make any sacrifice for your sake.”“Then marry Mr Geringer,” said the lady quickly.“It is impossible.”“Move from here at once. Take me away to some other place. Let me be where I can meet with some decent neighbours, and not be Chuted to death as I am here.”Mrs Thorne was so well satisfied with the sound of the new word which she had coined that she repeated it twice with different emphases.“My dear mother, we have no money; we are in debt and it might be months before I could obtain a fresh engagement. Mother, that too, is impossible.”“There—there—there!” cried Mrs Thorne, with aggravating iteration. “What did I say? Everything I propose is impossible, and yet in the same breath the child of my bosom tells me that she is ready to do anything to make me happy, and to show how dutiful she is.”“Mother,” said Hazel gravely, “how can you be so cruel? Your words cut me to the heart.”“I am glad of it, Hazel—I am very glad of it; for it was time that your hard, cruel heart should be touched, and that you should know something of the sufferings borne by your poor, bereaved mother. A little real sorrow, my child, would make you very, very different, and teach you, and change you. Ah, there is nothing like sorrow for chastening a hard and thoughtless heart!”“Mother dear,” said Hazel, trying to kiss her. “I must go into the school.”“No, no! don’t kiss me, Hazel,” said the poor, weak woman with a great show of dignity; “I could not bear it now. When you can come to me in all proper humility, as you will to-night, and say, ‘Mamma, we will leave here to-morrow,’ I shall be ready to receive you into my embrace once more.”“My dear mother, you drive me to speak firmly,” said Hazel quietly. “I shall not be able to come to you to-night and to say that we will leave here. It is impossible.”“Then you must have formed some attachment that you are keeping from me. Hazel, if you degrade yourself by marrying that Chute I will never speak to you again.”“Hush, mother! the children will hear.”“Let them hear my protests,” cried Mrs Thorne excitedly. “I will proclaim it on the housetops, as Mr Lambent very properly observed last Sunday in his sermon. I will let every one know that you intend to degrade yourself by that objectionable alliance, and against it I now enter my most formal protest.”Mrs Thorne’s voice was growing loud, and she was shedding tears. Her countenance was flushed, and she looked altogether unlovely as well as weak.Hazel hesitated for a moment, her face working, and the desire to weep bitterly uppermost, but she mastered it, and laying her hand upon her mother’s shoulder, bent forward once again to kiss her.It was only to be repulsed; and as, with a weary sigh, she turned to the door, Mrs Thorne said to her angrily—“It is time I resumed my position, Hazel—the position I gave up to you when forced by weakness and my many ills. Now I shall take to it once again, and I tell you that I will be obeyed. We shall leave this place to-morrow morning, and I am going to begin to pack up at once.”

It was, some will say, a childish, old-fashioned way of keeping cash, but all the same it was the plan adopted by Hazel, who every week dropped the amounts she had received from the school pence, after changing the coppers into silver, through the large slit of an old money-box that had been given her when a child. It was a plain, oak-wood box, with ordinary lock and key, and the slit at the top was large enough to admit of each week’s shillings and sixpences being tied up in note-paper, in the ladylike way adopted by the fair sex—that is to say, a neat packet is made and tied up with cotton. After the tying up Hazel used to put the amount it contained upon the packet, enter the said amount in a memorandum-book, drop the packet through the slit, and lock up the drawer in which the box reposed.

During the early portion of her stay at Plumton, as previously shown, Mr Chute went on changing the pence for her from copper to silver, but after a time Hazel felt a certain amount of diffidence in charging the schoolmaster with the task, and made an arrangement with the grocer and draper of the place, who readily made the exchange.

Then there was the monthly payment to the blanket fund, which was also placed in the same receptacle, after being duly noted; and there were times when Hazel thought that it would be a good thing when she could get rid of an amount that was rather a burden to her, and she even went so far as to think that she would ask Mr William Forth Burge to take charge of the amount, but for certain reasons she declined.

It was no uncommon thing for Hazel to run very short of money for housekeeping purposes, and several times over it would have been a great convenience to have made use of a portion of the school pence and replaced it from her salary; but she forbore, preferring that the sums she held in charge should remain untouched as they had come into her hands.

After expecting for what seemed a very great length of time, she at last received a beautifully written but ill-spelt letter from one of the churchwardens, requesting her to send him in a statement of the amounts received for the children’s pence, and to be prepared to hand over the money at a certain appointed time.

The letter came like a relief to her as she sat at dinner; and upon Mrs Thorne asking, in a somewhat ill-used tone, who had been writing that she was not to know of, her daughter smilingly handed her the letter.

“It was such a thorough business letter, dear, that I thought you would not care to read it.”

But Mrs Thorne took it, read it through, and passed it back without a word.

“I think you seem a good deal better, dear,” said Hazel, smiling.

“Indeed, I am not, child,” replied Mrs Thorne sharply. “I never felt worse. My health is terrible: Plumton does not agree with me, and I must have a change.”

“A change, dear?” said Hazel, sighing.

“Yes. It is dreadful this constant confinement in a little poking place. I feel sometimes as if I should be stifled. Good gracious, Hazel! what could you be thinking about to come and live in a town like this? Let’s go, my dear, and find some occupation more congenial to your spirit. I cannot bear to go on seeing how you are wasted here.”

“My dear mother!” exclaimed Hazel wonderingly.

“I repeat it, Hazel—I repeat it, my dear!” exclaimed Mrs Thorne excitedly. “You are not fit for this place, and the wretched people down here do not appreciate you. Let us go away at once.”

“But, my dear mother, it is impossible. I should, even if I thought it best, be obliged to give some months’ notice; and besides, it would be ungrateful to Mr and Miss Burge, and to the vicar, who is most kind and considerate.”

“Oh yes; I know all that,” whimpered Mrs Thorne. “But all the same, we must go.”

“Must go, mother dear?”

“Yes, child—must go. It is a cruelty to you to keep you here.”

“But I have been so well, mother; and I seem to be winning the confidence of the people, and the children begin to like me.”

“Oh yes—yes—yes; of course they are bound to like you, Hazel, seeing what a slave you make yourself to them. But all the same, my dear, I protest against your stopping here any longer.”

“My dear mother,” said Hazel, rising and going to her side to bend down and kiss her, “pray—pray don’t be so unreasonable.”

“Unreasonable?—unreasonable? Am I to be called unreasonable for advising you for your benefit? For shame, Hazel—for shame!”

“But my dear mother, suppose I accede to your wishes and decide to leave: where are we to go? I should have to seek for another engagement.”

“And you would get it, Hazel. Thousands of school managers would be only too glad to obtain your services.”

Hazel shook her head and smiled.

“No, mother dear; you are too partial. Engagements are not so plentiful as that. Think it over, and you will look at the matter differently. We have not the means at our command to think of moving now.”

“But we must leave, Hazel, and at once,” cried Mrs Thorne excitedly. “I cannot and I will not stay here.”

“But it would be unreasonable and foolish, dear, to think of doing so under our present circumstances. For the children’s sake—for Percy’s sake, pray be more considerate. We must not think of it at present. After a time, perhaps, I may have the offer of a better post and the change may be such a one as you will like. Come, dear, try and be content a little longer, and all will be right in the end.”

“Hazel,” cried Mrs Thorne angrily, “I insist upon your giving up this school at once!”

“My dear mother!”

“Now, no excuses, Hazel I say I insist upon your giving up this school at once, and I will be obeyed. Do you forget that I am your mother? Is my own child to rise up in rebellion against me? How dare you? How dare you, I say?”

“But my dear mother, if we decide to leave, where are we to go? Where is the money to pay for our removal? You know as well as I do that, in spite of my care, we are some pounds in the tradespeople’s debt.”

“Now she throws that in my face, when I have worked so hard to make both ends meet, and cut and contrived over the housekeeping, thinking and striving and straining, and now this is my reward!”

“I do not blame you, dear,” said Hazel sadly; “I only think it was a pity that you should have ordered goods for which we had not the money to pay.”

“And was I—a lady—to go on living in the mean, sordid, penurious way you proposed, Hazel? Shame upon you! Where is your respect for your wretched, unhappy parent?”

It was in Hazel’s heart to say, half angrily, “Oh, mother, dear mother, pray do not go on so!” but she simply replied, “I know, dear, that it is very hard upon you, but we are obliged to live within our means.”

“Yes: thanks to you, Hazel,” retorted her mother. “I might be living at ease, as a lady should, if my child were considerate, and had not given her heart to selfishness and a downright direct love of opposition to her parent’s wishes.”

“Dear mother,” cried Hazel piteously, “indeed I do try hard to study you in everything.”

“It ought to want no trying, Hazel. It ought to be the natural outcome of your heart if you were a good and affectionate child. Study me, indeed! See what you have brought me to! Did I ever expect to go about in these wretched, shabby, black things, do you suppose—I—I, who had as many as two dozen dresses upon the hooks in my wardrobe at one time? Oh, Hazel, if you would conquer the stubbornness of that heart!”

“My dear mother, I must go and put away the dinner-things; but I do not like to leave you like this.”

“Oh, pray go, madam; and follow your own fancies to the top of your bent. I am only your poor, weak mother, and what I say or do matters very little. Never mind me, I shall soon be dead and cold in my grave.”

“Oh, my dear mother, pray, pray do not talk like this!”

“And all I ask is, that there may be a simple headstone placed there, with my name and age; and, if it could possibly be managed, and not too great an expense and waste of money for so unimportant a person, I should like the words to be cut deeply in the marble,—or, no, I suppose it would be only stone, common stone—just these simple words: ‘She never forgot that she was a lady.’”

Here Mrs Thorne sighed deeply, and began to strive to extricate herself from her child’s enlacing arms.

“No, no, no, Hazel; don’t hold me—it is of no use. I can tell, even by the way you touch me, that you have no affection left for your poor suffering mother.”

“How can you say that dear?” said Hazel firmly.

“Nor yet in your words, even. Oh, Hazel, I never thought I should live to be spoken to like this by my own child!”

“My dear mother, I am ready to make any sacrifice for your sake.”

“Then marry Mr Geringer,” said the lady quickly.

“It is impossible.”

“Move from here at once. Take me away to some other place. Let me be where I can meet with some decent neighbours, and not be Chuted to death as I am here.”

Mrs Thorne was so well satisfied with the sound of the new word which she had coined that she repeated it twice with different emphases.

“My dear mother, we have no money; we are in debt and it might be months before I could obtain a fresh engagement. Mother, that too, is impossible.”

“There—there—there!” cried Mrs Thorne, with aggravating iteration. “What did I say? Everything I propose is impossible, and yet in the same breath the child of my bosom tells me that she is ready to do anything to make me happy, and to show how dutiful she is.”

“Mother,” said Hazel gravely, “how can you be so cruel? Your words cut me to the heart.”

“I am glad of it, Hazel—I am very glad of it; for it was time that your hard, cruel heart should be touched, and that you should know something of the sufferings borne by your poor, bereaved mother. A little real sorrow, my child, would make you very, very different, and teach you, and change you. Ah, there is nothing like sorrow for chastening a hard and thoughtless heart!”

“Mother dear,” said Hazel, trying to kiss her. “I must go into the school.”

“No, no! don’t kiss me, Hazel,” said the poor, weak woman with a great show of dignity; “I could not bear it now. When you can come to me in all proper humility, as you will to-night, and say, ‘Mamma, we will leave here to-morrow,’ I shall be ready to receive you into my embrace once more.”

“My dear mother, you drive me to speak firmly,” said Hazel quietly. “I shall not be able to come to you to-night and to say that we will leave here. It is impossible.”

“Then you must have formed some attachment that you are keeping from me. Hazel, if you degrade yourself by marrying that Chute I will never speak to you again.”

“Hush, mother! the children will hear.”

“Let them hear my protests,” cried Mrs Thorne excitedly. “I will proclaim it on the housetops, as Mr Lambent very properly observed last Sunday in his sermon. I will let every one know that you intend to degrade yourself by that objectionable alliance, and against it I now enter my most formal protest.”

Mrs Thorne’s voice was growing loud, and she was shedding tears. Her countenance was flushed, and she looked altogether unlovely as well as weak.

Hazel hesitated for a moment, her face working, and the desire to weep bitterly uppermost, but she mastered it, and laying her hand upon her mother’s shoulder, bent forward once again to kiss her.

It was only to be repulsed; and as, with a weary sigh, she turned to the door, Mrs Thorne said to her angrily—

“It is time I resumed my position, Hazel—the position I gave up to you when forced by weakness and my many ills. Now I shall take to it once again, and I tell you that I will be obeyed. We shall leave this place to-morrow morning, and I am going to begin to pack up at once.”

Chapter Thirty Two.A Question of Cash.“Heaven give me strength to be patient and forbearing!” said Hazel softly, as she left the cottage and went into the school, for it was just upon two o’clock. “What am I to do? Will she have forgotten this by night?”Far from it, for as soon as Hazel returned Mrs Thorne began again with fresh importunity, and in so strange a manner that her daughter grew frightened, and hesitated as to whether she should send for medical advice; but after a while the poor woman grew more calm, took out her work and began knitting some unnecessary ornament with costly wool; ending, to Hazel’s great relief, by going off fast asleep.She signed to the children to be quiet, and led them softly to bed without waking the sleeper; after which, at liberty for the first time that day, she sat down in her own room to think, previous to drawing up a statement of the school pence ready for giving to the churchwarden upon the following day.Hazel’s thoughts wandered far—to Archibald Graves, to Mr Geringer, and then to the vicar, his sisters, and good-hearted, kindly Mr Burge, to whom she felt that she could never be sufficiently grateful. Lastly, she went over her mother’s strange fit that day. Mrs Thorne had never seemed settled at Plumton, and had always been full of repining, but had never been so excited and importunate before.“She will be better to-morrow,” thought Hazel, “and perhaps revert to it no more. I told her aright—it is impossible for us to go away from here; and now—”She had been speaking half aloud during the last few minutes; but she said no more, only sat thinking deeply of the troubles she had had to encounter since she had been at Plumton, and a pleasant smile came upon her lip as she thought that the troubles had been more than balanced by the kindliness and friendly ways of many there. Even the parents of the children had a pleasant smile and a cheery word for her whenever she went to inquire after some sick absentee.“No,” she thought to herself. “I should not like to leave my children now.” And she smiled as she recalled scenes with Ann Straggalls and Feelier Potts. Then over the sunshine of her memories came clouds once more, as the stiff, chilling presence of the Lambent sisters intruded itself and changed the aspect of her workaday life. Then, as she sat and thought there came back the scene of the school feast the enjoyment of the children, and then—A vivid blush came into Hazel Thorne’s face, and she rose from her seat angry with herself and ready to cry shame for the direction her thoughts had taken, and that was towards George Canninge and the attentions he had paid her.She tried to drive these thoughts away, but they returned pertinaciously, and, try how she would, she kept picturing his face, his words, the quiet gentlemanly courtesy with which he had always treated her.“Oh, it is monstrous!” she cried aloud at last and taking her paper, pen, and ink, she prepared to make out the statement ready to deliver next day; but though she tried to keep her thoughts to the work, she found it impossible, and at last the tears gathered in her eyes, and, weary and low-spirited, she found herself thinking bitterly of her position in life, and her want of strength of mind for allowing such thoughts as these to intrude.At last she began to master herself, and taking up her pen, she opened her memorandum-book, copied out the various amounts received week by week ever since her coming, cast them up, and found that she had a total of twenty-three pounds seven shillings and fourpence, including nearly six pounds that had been paid in for club money.This done, she went down on tiptoe to see if Mrs Thorne had awakened; but she was sleeping soundly, and after glancing at the children Hazel returned to her task, though not to recommence, for once more the thoughts of George Canninge, and his conduct towards her, came back, till, blushing vividly for her folly, she made a stern effort and resumed her work.She had pretty well ended, but there was this to be done: she felt that she ought to unfasten the little packets of money and count them over and check them, ending by placing the whole of the silver in a stout canvas-bag which she had provided for the purpose. Leaving her seat, then, she opened the drawer and took out the heavy oaken box, placed it upon the table, and unlocked it slowly, her thoughts wandering to George Canninge all the time, but only to be rudely brought back by the box before her.She had not opened it before during many months, but in imagination she had pictured its contends—a number of little white packets tied up with cotton lying one upon the other in a sort of neat chaos. Instead of this there were the pieces of paper certainly, but they had been opened, and the scraps of cotton were lying about with the crumpled paper and a number of pence.It struck her as strange, that was all. She did not for the moment remember placing pence in the box, but she must have done so once, probably when she could not get them changed for silver. It was hard to recall what she had done in the course of so many weeks, and after trying for a few moments, she let the effort go, and picked up two or three of the pieces of paper to read her memorandums on the outer side. This one was six shillings and fivepence, that five and elevenpence, then a heavier one that had held ten shillings and sixpence; and again another, evidently when some arrears had been paid up, for it had contained eleven shillings and ninepence.Then the paper dropped from Hazel’s hand, and, with lips parted and a look of astonishment in her eyes, she hurriedly took out the heap of pieces of paper, to find that, one and all, they had been emptied, and that at the bottom of the box lay about five shillings’ worth of coppers, not a single silver coin remaining behind.“Ah!” ejaculated Hazel, and a chill of horror ran through her, followed by a peculiar sinking sensation of dread. Where was the money left in her charge—where were the contents of those little packets which she had so carefully tied up and entered? Not one remained untouched, for the box had been opened, and she had been robbed!No: it was impossible. Who could know of the existence of that money? Strangers might know that she received the money weekly, but no one would be aware of the fact that she placed it in that box, locked it, and then locked the box in her drawer.She must have made some mistake. It was impossible that she could have been robbed. It was a mistake certainly, and she hurriedly turned out the contents of the box upon the bed, and counted up the pence first—four shillings and ninepence. Then there were the empty papers.Hazel put her hand to her head, feeling bewildered, and wondering whether she had not made some strange mistake. Did she know what she was doing, or was her memory failing from over-study?Making a determined effort to be cool, she took the papers, arranged them by their dates, and checked them off by the statement which she had drawn up, to find that they tallied exactly; but when she had done that she was no further than before, and at last she stood there in a state of helpless despair, face to face with the fact that she had at last been called upon to give an account of her stewardship and the moneys that should have been ready for handing over to the churchwarden were gone.Hazel sank down upon the floor with her hands clenched and her brain dizzy, to try and think out the meaning of this strange problem.She recalled that she had had other difficult questions to solve before now—puzzles that had seemed perfectly insurmountable, but that they had grown less formidable by degrees, and the difficulties had been surmounted. Perhaps, then, this would prove less black after a time, and she would make out how it was.Had she paid anybody? taken any of the money? given change?No; she could recollect nothing, and in place of growing clearer, the problem grew momentarily more and more confused.Her brow became full of wrinkles, her head more giddy, and as she crouched upon the floor with the empty money-box upon the bed, and the candle that stood upon the table surrounded by the empty wrappers, long of snuff and mushroom topped, she began more and more to realise the fact that at last she was face to face with a difficulty far greater than any that she had yet been called upon to deal with since she had been at Plumton.It was horrible. She had to give up a heavy amount on the next day—a sum that she held in trust—and it was missing.What should she do? What could she do?She could have sobbed in the agony of her heart; but she forced herself to think—to try and make out where the money had gone.The children would not have taken it; they did not know of its existence. Then who could?Percy?Oh no, it was impossible. He had—Oh no; she would not harbour the thought. He had been weak and foolish, but she felt that she should scorn herself if she harboured such a thought as that her brother would have taken the money that she had in charge. It was too dreadful, and she would not believe it.Then who could it be?As she asked herself this again and again she suddenly heard a sound below as of a chair being thrust back. Then some one rose, and there came the opening of a door, and steps upon the stairs.Hazel rose softly, and stood behind the dim unsnuffed candle as the steps came higher. The door was thrust open, and the breath that Hazel had been holding back till she felt that she must suffocate escaped with a loud sigh, and mother and daughter stood gazing across the table at each other.The thought was horrible, almost maddening—but there was Mrs Thorne with her cap half off, and her hair slightly disarranged by her sleeping, staring in a shrinking, half-angry way before her daughter’s searching gaze.For Hazel had no such thought before. Now it came with almost stunning violence, and she saw in it the explanation of her mother’s strange manner that day—her sudden desire to leave Plumton at any cost, as soon as she had read the letter containing the request for the school funds to be given up.Words rose to Hazel Thorne’s lips, and then sank back; they rose again, and she still remained silent. It was in her mind to ask her mother in accusing tones what she knew of the absent money, for she, and she alone, knew where it was kept and could have had access to the keys.But no; those words were not uttered. She could not speak them. It was too horrible! But Hazel’s eyes accused the poor, weak woman, who waited for nothing more, and exclaimed:—“There, there, Hazel! don’t glower at me like that child! It’s all your fault; leaving me so short as you did for days and weeks together. Not a shilling to call my own, and poor Percy always writing to me for new clothes and pocket-money; and then things wanted to make the house tidy. I was obliged to use the money; I don’t know what I should have done without it. You must pay it back out of your next quarter’s salary; and there: pray don’t look at me like that. It’s very dreadful to be reduced to taking every penny from your own daughter, and—”“Oh, mother, mother!” wailed Hazel; “say no more. What have you—have you done?”“What have I done? What was I to do? How can you be so foolish, Hazel? Do you suppose I can keep up even so small an establishment as this upon the wretched pittance you give me for housekeeping?”Hazel gazed at her mother wonderingly, for the poor woman took hardly any interest in the household management which fell almost entirely upon her child, who found no little difficulty in keeping matters straight. And now Mrs Thorne was seizing upon this as a reason for her abstraction of the money; for she made no denial whatever, but, driven to bay, haughtily acknowledged the fact.“Then you really did take this money, mother?”“Of course I did, Hazel. Why should I leave it when it was lying idly there? It was absurd.”“But, my dear mother, the money was not mine.”“What nonsense, Hazel! What does it matter whether it was yours or not? Money’s money. The school people don’t want you to give them the very pennies that the children brought.”“No, mother; but they want the amount.”“Then give it to them, Hazel. My dear child, what a ridiculous fuss you do make?”“But, mother, do you not understand—do you not see that I have no money, and no means of making it up?”“Really, Hazel, you are too absurd,” said Mrs Thorne with forced levity. “What is the ridiculous amount?”“Between twenty and thirty pounds.”“Absurd! Why, I have often given as much, or more, for a new dress. There, get the money from the school people—Mr Lambent, Mr Burge, or somebody—and pray do not bother me about it any more.”“Mother, dear mother,” cried Hazel, “have you no thought? Tell me, have you any of this money left?”“Of course not, and I must beg of you not to address me in so disrespectful a manner. It is a very good thing that your little sisters are not awake. I would not have them hear you speak to me like this on any consideration.”“How ever could you think of taking the money?”“Now, this is too absurd; Hazel, when you leave me for days together without a penny. Why, I have even been obliged to go to Mrs Chute to borrow a shilling before now.”“You have borrowed shillings of Mrs Chute, mother?”“To be sure I have, my dear; and of course I had to pay them back. She said it was absurd not to use the school pence.”“She told you that?” cried Hazel quickly.“Yes, my dear; and she said that both she and Mr Chute often used the pence, and made the sum up again when he took his salary. There, I am sleepy. For goodness’ sake, put away that box and get to bed, and don’t be so ridiculous.”Hazel looked piteously at her mother, and stood hesitating for a few minutes, asking herself what she was to do in such a strait, for it seemed as if Mrs Thorne had quite lost all sense of right and wrong.Was this really, then, the reason why her mother had expressed such a keen desire to got. It seemed like it, and this explained a great deal; for as Hazel studied her appearance more, it became evident to her that the poor woman was in a state of intense nervous trepidation, and that she hardly dare meet her daughter’s eye.“Mother,” said Hazel at length, “the churchwarden will be here to-morrow, asking me for this money. What am I to say?”“Say nothing, you foolish child! Pay him out of some other money.”“You know, mother, that I have no other money whatever.”“Then tell him to wait, like any other trades-person. He is only a common man. Such people as these must take their money when they can get it.”“Are you wilfully blinding yourself to the fact, mother, that we have committed a theft in using this money?”“My dear, absurd child—”“That it is as great a trouble as that from the consequences of which poor, foolish Percy has just been rescued by Mr Burge?”“Then go to Mr Burge, Hazel, and tell him that you were obliged to use the money because the salary is so small. He will give you the amount directly, my dear;” and she nodded and smiled as she eagerly reiterated her advice.“Mother, mother, what are you thinking of?”“I’m thinking of what is for the best, Hazel, under the circumstances,” said Mrs Thorne pompously.“Mother,” cried Hazel excitedly, for she was now regularly unstrung, “I could not degrade myself by going and asking Mr Burge for that money, and I dare not face the churchwarden to-morrow when he comes. You took the money—cruelly took the money that was not mine—and I must send him to you.”“No—no; no, no, my dear Hazel, I could not, I will not see him! It is impossible. I dare not face him, Hazel. No, no! Let us go away; there is plenty of time. Let us go and settle down somewhere else, and let them forget all about it. They soon will.”“Mother, are you bereft of your senses?” said Hazel. “Oh, for shame, for shame! How could we go away and leave such a name behind us? How could I ever hold up my head again? Oh, how could you? How could you?”“I’m sure, my dear, I never thought it would cause all this trouble, or I wouldn’t have taken the paltry, rubbishing money. But Hazel, Hazel,” she cried, glancing round in an excited manner, “you—you don’t think—you don’t think—they’d take me up for it? Hazel, it would kill me; I’m sure it would. I’ve been frightened, my dear, ever since I took the first packet; but taking one seemed to make me take another.”“Mother,” said Hazel, as a thought flashed across her mind, “does Mrs Chute know that you took this money?”“Yes, my dear; I told her every time, and she said it was quite right and the best thing I could do. Oh, my dear child, pray, pray do something! Let’s—let’s run away, Hazel; and take all we can carry, and leave the rest.”“Be silent mother. Sit down, and let me think,” said Hazel in a cold, hard voice.“Oh, don’t speak to me like that Hazel!” cried Mrs Thorne reproachfully. “What have I done to deserve it?”Hazel glanced at her wonderingly, for the poor woman’s words were absurd; but she had evidently spoken in all sincerity, and there was a mute agony of mind and appeal in her countenance, which made her child feel that it would be folly to look upon her any more as one who was thoroughly answerable for her actions.“Hadn’t we better go, Hazel?” she said again. “This is a miserable place, and we should be better away. The people are not nice. We could get a long way off by morning, and then we shouldn’t be worried any more about this wretched school money.”“Pray, pray be quiet, mother!” said Hazel wearily; “you distract me!”“Ah! you are beginning to feel what trouble is now. I’ve—had my share, Hazel.”“Mother, will you be silent, and let me try to think of some way out of this difficulty?”“Of course I will, my dear; though I don’t see why you should speak so pertly to me, and show such want of respect for your poor, bereaved mother. For my part, I don’t think you need trouble your head about it. The churchwarden will know that you are a lady, and if, as a lady, you give him your word that you will send the money to him—say to-morrow or next day, or next week—I’m sure it cannot be particular to a few days.”Hazel covered her face with her hands, resting her elbows upon her knees, while Mrs Thorne went maundering on; and as the poor girl sat there, mingled with her thoughts came her mother’s garrulity. Now it was strong advice to go at once to Mr Burge, who, in spite of his vulgarity, was very rich and well-disposed. Mrs Thorne said that she would not for a moment mind asking him herself, and that would settle the matter at once.Then she thought that Mr Lambent, who, in spite of his stiffness, was a thorough gentleman, had displayed a good deal of interest in Hazel. He would lend her the money in a moment if he had it; but then Mrs Thorne was not sure that he had got it, and he might not be able to get it in time; for, as Hazel would know when she grew older, clergymen were very often short of money, especially curates; and if she, Mrs Thorne, had her time to come over again, she should never listen to the attentions of a curate. Yes: Mr Lambent would, of course, lend the money if he had it, for he was a perfect gentleman, and could not, of course, refuse a lady; but then he might not have it and if this were the case, all he could do would be to speak to the churchwarden and tell him to wait.Then there was Mr Canninge, a very gentlemanly man, who might be quite ready to advance the amount as a sort of donation to the school, especially as Hazel was so genteel, and ladylike. She felt that she rather liked Mr Canninge, and if she were Hazel she should be very particular how she behaved to Mr Canninge—for there was no knowing. Some gentlemen had common-sense enough not to look for money, and she had her suspicions on the day of the school feast.“Yes,” rattled Mrs Thorne, “he was very attentive that day. I remarked it several times. I have a very observant eye, Hazel, for that sort of thing, and depend upon it my dear, if you play your cards properly, there are far more unlikely things than your becoming mistress of Ardley Hall. Yes; I should say that you might very well send Mr Canninge a nicely-worded note, written on thoroughly good paper—in fact, I’d get some for the purpose—and take pains with your writing, so as to let him see that you are a lady. I should tell him that a sudden demand has been made upon you for fifty pounds—yes, I’d make it fifty pounds, anything under looks so paltry, and as if you were a common begging-letter writer. I don’t know but what I’d make it a hundred while I was about it. The extra money would be so useful, my dear; you could buy yourself a few dresses with it and make yourself more attractive. You would be sure to win Mr Canninge, I feel certain. The very fact of your showing him that you look upon him almost as a friend would be sufficient to make, as it were, a link between you. Ah! my dear, if young people would only think a little more of their advantages they would be far more successful in life.”Here Mrs Thorne yawned very audibly, and looked at Hazel, who was still bending down, hearing everything, and struggling at the same time to see her way out of the difficulty before them, and to keep back the feelings of misery and degradation aroused by her mother’s words.“She has actually gone to sleep!” said Mrs Thorne, who seemed quite to have forgotten the terrors of the past few hours. “Ah, these young people—these young people! Heigh-ho!—has—have—Dear me, how sleepy I am! I think I’ll go to bed.”She glanced at Hazel, and hesitated for a moment, as if about to touch her, but directly after she left the room, saying—“I won’t wake her. Poor girl! she works very hard, and must be terribly tired.”As Mrs Thorne closed the door and went into the adjoining room, Hazel rose from her crouching attitude, her faced lined with care-marks, and a hopeless aspect of misery in her heavy eyes.Hazel stood gazing at the door, listening to every sound from the little adjoining room, till she heard her mother sigh and throw herself upon the bed, when she said in a low voice, “God help me!” and knelt down to pray.

“Heaven give me strength to be patient and forbearing!” said Hazel softly, as she left the cottage and went into the school, for it was just upon two o’clock. “What am I to do? Will she have forgotten this by night?”

Far from it, for as soon as Hazel returned Mrs Thorne began again with fresh importunity, and in so strange a manner that her daughter grew frightened, and hesitated as to whether she should send for medical advice; but after a while the poor woman grew more calm, took out her work and began knitting some unnecessary ornament with costly wool; ending, to Hazel’s great relief, by going off fast asleep.

She signed to the children to be quiet, and led them softly to bed without waking the sleeper; after which, at liberty for the first time that day, she sat down in her own room to think, previous to drawing up a statement of the school pence ready for giving to the churchwarden upon the following day.

Hazel’s thoughts wandered far—to Archibald Graves, to Mr Geringer, and then to the vicar, his sisters, and good-hearted, kindly Mr Burge, to whom she felt that she could never be sufficiently grateful. Lastly, she went over her mother’s strange fit that day. Mrs Thorne had never seemed settled at Plumton, and had always been full of repining, but had never been so excited and importunate before.

“She will be better to-morrow,” thought Hazel, “and perhaps revert to it no more. I told her aright—it is impossible for us to go away from here; and now—”

She had been speaking half aloud during the last few minutes; but she said no more, only sat thinking deeply of the troubles she had had to encounter since she had been at Plumton, and a pleasant smile came upon her lip as she thought that the troubles had been more than balanced by the kindliness and friendly ways of many there. Even the parents of the children had a pleasant smile and a cheery word for her whenever she went to inquire after some sick absentee.

“No,” she thought to herself. “I should not like to leave my children now.” And she smiled as she recalled scenes with Ann Straggalls and Feelier Potts. Then over the sunshine of her memories came clouds once more, as the stiff, chilling presence of the Lambent sisters intruded itself and changed the aspect of her workaday life. Then, as she sat and thought there came back the scene of the school feast the enjoyment of the children, and then—

A vivid blush came into Hazel Thorne’s face, and she rose from her seat angry with herself and ready to cry shame for the direction her thoughts had taken, and that was towards George Canninge and the attentions he had paid her.

She tried to drive these thoughts away, but they returned pertinaciously, and, try how she would, she kept picturing his face, his words, the quiet gentlemanly courtesy with which he had always treated her.

“Oh, it is monstrous!” she cried aloud at last and taking her paper, pen, and ink, she prepared to make out the statement ready to deliver next day; but though she tried to keep her thoughts to the work, she found it impossible, and at last the tears gathered in her eyes, and, weary and low-spirited, she found herself thinking bitterly of her position in life, and her want of strength of mind for allowing such thoughts as these to intrude.

At last she began to master herself, and taking up her pen, she opened her memorandum-book, copied out the various amounts received week by week ever since her coming, cast them up, and found that she had a total of twenty-three pounds seven shillings and fourpence, including nearly six pounds that had been paid in for club money.

This done, she went down on tiptoe to see if Mrs Thorne had awakened; but she was sleeping soundly, and after glancing at the children Hazel returned to her task, though not to recommence, for once more the thoughts of George Canninge, and his conduct towards her, came back, till, blushing vividly for her folly, she made a stern effort and resumed her work.

She had pretty well ended, but there was this to be done: she felt that she ought to unfasten the little packets of money and count them over and check them, ending by placing the whole of the silver in a stout canvas-bag which she had provided for the purpose. Leaving her seat, then, she opened the drawer and took out the heavy oaken box, placed it upon the table, and unlocked it slowly, her thoughts wandering to George Canninge all the time, but only to be rudely brought back by the box before her.

She had not opened it before during many months, but in imagination she had pictured its contends—a number of little white packets tied up with cotton lying one upon the other in a sort of neat chaos. Instead of this there were the pieces of paper certainly, but they had been opened, and the scraps of cotton were lying about with the crumpled paper and a number of pence.

It struck her as strange, that was all. She did not for the moment remember placing pence in the box, but she must have done so once, probably when she could not get them changed for silver. It was hard to recall what she had done in the course of so many weeks, and after trying for a few moments, she let the effort go, and picked up two or three of the pieces of paper to read her memorandums on the outer side. This one was six shillings and fivepence, that five and elevenpence, then a heavier one that had held ten shillings and sixpence; and again another, evidently when some arrears had been paid up, for it had contained eleven shillings and ninepence.

Then the paper dropped from Hazel’s hand, and, with lips parted and a look of astonishment in her eyes, she hurriedly took out the heap of pieces of paper, to find that, one and all, they had been emptied, and that at the bottom of the box lay about five shillings’ worth of coppers, not a single silver coin remaining behind.

“Ah!” ejaculated Hazel, and a chill of horror ran through her, followed by a peculiar sinking sensation of dread. Where was the money left in her charge—where were the contents of those little packets which she had so carefully tied up and entered? Not one remained untouched, for the box had been opened, and she had been robbed!

No: it was impossible. Who could know of the existence of that money? Strangers might know that she received the money weekly, but no one would be aware of the fact that she placed it in that box, locked it, and then locked the box in her drawer.

She must have made some mistake. It was impossible that she could have been robbed. It was a mistake certainly, and she hurriedly turned out the contents of the box upon the bed, and counted up the pence first—four shillings and ninepence. Then there were the empty papers.

Hazel put her hand to her head, feeling bewildered, and wondering whether she had not made some strange mistake. Did she know what she was doing, or was her memory failing from over-study?

Making a determined effort to be cool, she took the papers, arranged them by their dates, and checked them off by the statement which she had drawn up, to find that they tallied exactly; but when she had done that she was no further than before, and at last she stood there in a state of helpless despair, face to face with the fact that she had at last been called upon to give an account of her stewardship and the moneys that should have been ready for handing over to the churchwarden were gone.

Hazel sank down upon the floor with her hands clenched and her brain dizzy, to try and think out the meaning of this strange problem.

She recalled that she had had other difficult questions to solve before now—puzzles that had seemed perfectly insurmountable, but that they had grown less formidable by degrees, and the difficulties had been surmounted. Perhaps, then, this would prove less black after a time, and she would make out how it was.

Had she paid anybody? taken any of the money? given change?

No; she could recollect nothing, and in place of growing clearer, the problem grew momentarily more and more confused.

Her brow became full of wrinkles, her head more giddy, and as she crouched upon the floor with the empty money-box upon the bed, and the candle that stood upon the table surrounded by the empty wrappers, long of snuff and mushroom topped, she began more and more to realise the fact that at last she was face to face with a difficulty far greater than any that she had yet been called upon to deal with since she had been at Plumton.

It was horrible. She had to give up a heavy amount on the next day—a sum that she held in trust—and it was missing.

What should she do? What could she do?

She could have sobbed in the agony of her heart; but she forced herself to think—to try and make out where the money had gone.

The children would not have taken it; they did not know of its existence. Then who could?

Percy?

Oh no, it was impossible. He had—

Oh no; she would not harbour the thought. He had been weak and foolish, but she felt that she should scorn herself if she harboured such a thought as that her brother would have taken the money that she had in charge. It was too dreadful, and she would not believe it.

Then who could it be?

As she asked herself this again and again she suddenly heard a sound below as of a chair being thrust back. Then some one rose, and there came the opening of a door, and steps upon the stairs.

Hazel rose softly, and stood behind the dim unsnuffed candle as the steps came higher. The door was thrust open, and the breath that Hazel had been holding back till she felt that she must suffocate escaped with a loud sigh, and mother and daughter stood gazing across the table at each other.

The thought was horrible, almost maddening—but there was Mrs Thorne with her cap half off, and her hair slightly disarranged by her sleeping, staring in a shrinking, half-angry way before her daughter’s searching gaze.

For Hazel had no such thought before. Now it came with almost stunning violence, and she saw in it the explanation of her mother’s strange manner that day—her sudden desire to leave Plumton at any cost, as soon as she had read the letter containing the request for the school funds to be given up.

Words rose to Hazel Thorne’s lips, and then sank back; they rose again, and she still remained silent. It was in her mind to ask her mother in accusing tones what she knew of the absent money, for she, and she alone, knew where it was kept and could have had access to the keys.

But no; those words were not uttered. She could not speak them. It was too horrible! But Hazel’s eyes accused the poor, weak woman, who waited for nothing more, and exclaimed:—

“There, there, Hazel! don’t glower at me like that child! It’s all your fault; leaving me so short as you did for days and weeks together. Not a shilling to call my own, and poor Percy always writing to me for new clothes and pocket-money; and then things wanted to make the house tidy. I was obliged to use the money; I don’t know what I should have done without it. You must pay it back out of your next quarter’s salary; and there: pray don’t look at me like that. It’s very dreadful to be reduced to taking every penny from your own daughter, and—”

“Oh, mother, mother!” wailed Hazel; “say no more. What have you—have you done?”

“What have I done? What was I to do? How can you be so foolish, Hazel? Do you suppose I can keep up even so small an establishment as this upon the wretched pittance you give me for housekeeping?”

Hazel gazed at her mother wonderingly, for the poor woman took hardly any interest in the household management which fell almost entirely upon her child, who found no little difficulty in keeping matters straight. And now Mrs Thorne was seizing upon this as a reason for her abstraction of the money; for she made no denial whatever, but, driven to bay, haughtily acknowledged the fact.

“Then you really did take this money, mother?”

“Of course I did, Hazel. Why should I leave it when it was lying idly there? It was absurd.”

“But, my dear mother, the money was not mine.”

“What nonsense, Hazel! What does it matter whether it was yours or not? Money’s money. The school people don’t want you to give them the very pennies that the children brought.”

“No, mother; but they want the amount.”

“Then give it to them, Hazel. My dear child, what a ridiculous fuss you do make?”

“But, mother, do you not understand—do you not see that I have no money, and no means of making it up?”

“Really, Hazel, you are too absurd,” said Mrs Thorne with forced levity. “What is the ridiculous amount?”

“Between twenty and thirty pounds.”

“Absurd! Why, I have often given as much, or more, for a new dress. There, get the money from the school people—Mr Lambent, Mr Burge, or somebody—and pray do not bother me about it any more.”

“Mother, dear mother,” cried Hazel, “have you no thought? Tell me, have you any of this money left?”

“Of course not, and I must beg of you not to address me in so disrespectful a manner. It is a very good thing that your little sisters are not awake. I would not have them hear you speak to me like this on any consideration.”

“How ever could you think of taking the money?”

“Now, this is too absurd; Hazel, when you leave me for days together without a penny. Why, I have even been obliged to go to Mrs Chute to borrow a shilling before now.”

“You have borrowed shillings of Mrs Chute, mother?”

“To be sure I have, my dear; and of course I had to pay them back. She said it was absurd not to use the school pence.”

“She told you that?” cried Hazel quickly.

“Yes, my dear; and she said that both she and Mr Chute often used the pence, and made the sum up again when he took his salary. There, I am sleepy. For goodness’ sake, put away that box and get to bed, and don’t be so ridiculous.”

Hazel looked piteously at her mother, and stood hesitating for a few minutes, asking herself what she was to do in such a strait, for it seemed as if Mrs Thorne had quite lost all sense of right and wrong.

Was this really, then, the reason why her mother had expressed such a keen desire to got. It seemed like it, and this explained a great deal; for as Hazel studied her appearance more, it became evident to her that the poor woman was in a state of intense nervous trepidation, and that she hardly dare meet her daughter’s eye.

“Mother,” said Hazel at length, “the churchwarden will be here to-morrow, asking me for this money. What am I to say?”

“Say nothing, you foolish child! Pay him out of some other money.”

“You know, mother, that I have no other money whatever.”

“Then tell him to wait, like any other trades-person. He is only a common man. Such people as these must take their money when they can get it.”

“Are you wilfully blinding yourself to the fact, mother, that we have committed a theft in using this money?”

“My dear, absurd child—”

“That it is as great a trouble as that from the consequences of which poor, foolish Percy has just been rescued by Mr Burge?”

“Then go to Mr Burge, Hazel, and tell him that you were obliged to use the money because the salary is so small. He will give you the amount directly, my dear;” and she nodded and smiled as she eagerly reiterated her advice.

“Mother, mother, what are you thinking of?”

“I’m thinking of what is for the best, Hazel, under the circumstances,” said Mrs Thorne pompously.

“Mother,” cried Hazel excitedly, for she was now regularly unstrung, “I could not degrade myself by going and asking Mr Burge for that money, and I dare not face the churchwarden to-morrow when he comes. You took the money—cruelly took the money that was not mine—and I must send him to you.”

“No—no; no, no, my dear Hazel, I could not, I will not see him! It is impossible. I dare not face him, Hazel. No, no! Let us go away; there is plenty of time. Let us go and settle down somewhere else, and let them forget all about it. They soon will.”

“Mother, are you bereft of your senses?” said Hazel. “Oh, for shame, for shame! How could we go away and leave such a name behind us? How could I ever hold up my head again? Oh, how could you? How could you?”

“I’m sure, my dear, I never thought it would cause all this trouble, or I wouldn’t have taken the paltry, rubbishing money. But Hazel, Hazel,” she cried, glancing round in an excited manner, “you—you don’t think—you don’t think—they’d take me up for it? Hazel, it would kill me; I’m sure it would. I’ve been frightened, my dear, ever since I took the first packet; but taking one seemed to make me take another.”

“Mother,” said Hazel, as a thought flashed across her mind, “does Mrs Chute know that you took this money?”

“Yes, my dear; I told her every time, and she said it was quite right and the best thing I could do. Oh, my dear child, pray, pray do something! Let’s—let’s run away, Hazel; and take all we can carry, and leave the rest.”

“Be silent mother. Sit down, and let me think,” said Hazel in a cold, hard voice.

“Oh, don’t speak to me like that Hazel!” cried Mrs Thorne reproachfully. “What have I done to deserve it?”

Hazel glanced at her wonderingly, for the poor woman’s words were absurd; but she had evidently spoken in all sincerity, and there was a mute agony of mind and appeal in her countenance, which made her child feel that it would be folly to look upon her any more as one who was thoroughly answerable for her actions.

“Hadn’t we better go, Hazel?” she said again. “This is a miserable place, and we should be better away. The people are not nice. We could get a long way off by morning, and then we shouldn’t be worried any more about this wretched school money.”

“Pray, pray be quiet, mother!” said Hazel wearily; “you distract me!”

“Ah! you are beginning to feel what trouble is now. I’ve—had my share, Hazel.”

“Mother, will you be silent, and let me try to think of some way out of this difficulty?”

“Of course I will, my dear; though I don’t see why you should speak so pertly to me, and show such want of respect for your poor, bereaved mother. For my part, I don’t think you need trouble your head about it. The churchwarden will know that you are a lady, and if, as a lady, you give him your word that you will send the money to him—say to-morrow or next day, or next week—I’m sure it cannot be particular to a few days.”

Hazel covered her face with her hands, resting her elbows upon her knees, while Mrs Thorne went maundering on; and as the poor girl sat there, mingled with her thoughts came her mother’s garrulity. Now it was strong advice to go at once to Mr Burge, who, in spite of his vulgarity, was very rich and well-disposed. Mrs Thorne said that she would not for a moment mind asking him herself, and that would settle the matter at once.

Then she thought that Mr Lambent, who, in spite of his stiffness, was a thorough gentleman, had displayed a good deal of interest in Hazel. He would lend her the money in a moment if he had it; but then Mrs Thorne was not sure that he had got it, and he might not be able to get it in time; for, as Hazel would know when she grew older, clergymen were very often short of money, especially curates; and if she, Mrs Thorne, had her time to come over again, she should never listen to the attentions of a curate. Yes: Mr Lambent would, of course, lend the money if he had it, for he was a perfect gentleman, and could not, of course, refuse a lady; but then he might not have it and if this were the case, all he could do would be to speak to the churchwarden and tell him to wait.

Then there was Mr Canninge, a very gentlemanly man, who might be quite ready to advance the amount as a sort of donation to the school, especially as Hazel was so genteel, and ladylike. She felt that she rather liked Mr Canninge, and if she were Hazel she should be very particular how she behaved to Mr Canninge—for there was no knowing. Some gentlemen had common-sense enough not to look for money, and she had her suspicions on the day of the school feast.

“Yes,” rattled Mrs Thorne, “he was very attentive that day. I remarked it several times. I have a very observant eye, Hazel, for that sort of thing, and depend upon it my dear, if you play your cards properly, there are far more unlikely things than your becoming mistress of Ardley Hall. Yes; I should say that you might very well send Mr Canninge a nicely-worded note, written on thoroughly good paper—in fact, I’d get some for the purpose—and take pains with your writing, so as to let him see that you are a lady. I should tell him that a sudden demand has been made upon you for fifty pounds—yes, I’d make it fifty pounds, anything under looks so paltry, and as if you were a common begging-letter writer. I don’t know but what I’d make it a hundred while I was about it. The extra money would be so useful, my dear; you could buy yourself a few dresses with it and make yourself more attractive. You would be sure to win Mr Canninge, I feel certain. The very fact of your showing him that you look upon him almost as a friend would be sufficient to make, as it were, a link between you. Ah! my dear, if young people would only think a little more of their advantages they would be far more successful in life.”

Here Mrs Thorne yawned very audibly, and looked at Hazel, who was still bending down, hearing everything, and struggling at the same time to see her way out of the difficulty before them, and to keep back the feelings of misery and degradation aroused by her mother’s words.

“She has actually gone to sleep!” said Mrs Thorne, who seemed quite to have forgotten the terrors of the past few hours. “Ah, these young people—these young people! Heigh-ho!—has—have—Dear me, how sleepy I am! I think I’ll go to bed.”

She glanced at Hazel, and hesitated for a moment, as if about to touch her, but directly after she left the room, saying—

“I won’t wake her. Poor girl! she works very hard, and must be terribly tired.”

As Mrs Thorne closed the door and went into the adjoining room, Hazel rose from her crouching attitude, her faced lined with care-marks, and a hopeless aspect of misery in her heavy eyes.

Hazel stood gazing at the door, listening to every sound from the little adjoining room, till she heard her mother sigh and throw herself upon the bed, when she said in a low voice, “God help me!” and knelt down to pray.

Chapter Thirty Three.Paying the Piper.“You must ask Mr Canninge, Hazel, or else Mr Burge or Mr Lambent,” said Mrs Thorne dictatorially. “Either you must ask one of those gentlemen, or I shall certainly feel that it is my duty to leave Plumton and seek a refuge at the home of one of my relatives.”“Mother,” said Hazel decidedly, “I cannot ask one of those gentlemen. Can you not see that it would be a degradation that I could not bear?”“If you would think less of your own degradation, Hazel, and more of mine,” said Mrs Thorne, “I think it would be far more becoming on your part.”It was breakfast-time, and, hot-eyed, feverish, and weary, Hazel was trying to force down a few morsels of dry bread as she sipped her weak tea.She made no reply, but was working hard to find some solution of the difficulty in which she found herself, but could see none.One thing was evident to her, and that was the fact that she must take the full blame of the pence being missing, and undertake to pay it out of her next half-year’s salary. It was impossible for her to accuse her mother, and she could think of no relatives who would advance the money. Her head ached violently, and she was suffering from a severe attack of lassitude that deadened her brain-power making her ready to go back to her bed and try to forget everything in sleep.But there was the day’s work to meet and at last, in a dreary, hopeless spirit, she went to the school, seeing Mr Chute on his way to the duties of the day, and meeting his eye, which was full of an ugly, malicious expression, that made her shrink and feel that she had indeed made this man her enemy.The children were more tiresome than usual, or seemed to be, and it was only by a great effort that she was able to keep her attention to the work in hand.At another time she would not have noticed it, but now every tap at the schoolhouse door made her start violently, and think that it was the churchwarden, Mr Piper, come for the school pence.“A guilty conscience needs no accuser,” she thought to herself, as she set to once more trying to see her way to some solution of her difficulty, but always in vain; and at last she found herself letting the trouble drift till it should find bottom in some shallow shoal or against the shore, for nothing she could do would help her on.The only thing she could hit upon was to say to the churchwarden that she would bring him up the money shortly, and in the meantime she might find out some means of raising it wishing the while that the jewellery of which she once had a plentiful supply was still her own.She could think of no other plan, and was drearily going on with her work, when there came a loud tap from one of the lower classes, presided over at that time by Feelier Potts, and followed by a howl.“What is that?”“Please, teacher, Feely Potts hit me over the head with a book.”“Please, teacher, I kep’ on telling her you’d got a bad headache, teacher, and told her to be quiet, and she would keep on making a noise, and—and—and I think I did box her with the Testament, teacher.”“But you know, Ophelia how strictly I have forbidden any monitor to touch one of her class.”“Yes, please, teacher; and I wouldn’t have touched her now, only I knew you’d got such a bad headache, and she would be so tiresome I felt as if I could knock her head right off.”“Ophelia!” exclaimed Hazel, as she felt ready to smile at what was evidently a maternal expression.“Please, teacher, I won’t do so no more.”“Then go to your class. I shall trust you, mind. You have given me your word.”“Yes, teacher,” cried the girl eagerly; “and is your head better, please, teacher!”“No, Ophelia; it is very bad,” said Hazel wearily.“Then, please, teacher, let me run home and get mother’s smelling-salts. She’s got a new twopenny bottle. Such strong ’uns. Do, please, let me go and fetch ’em, teacher.”“Thank you; no, Ophelia,” said Hazel, smiling at the girl, whose eyes were sparkling with eagerness. “I have a bottle here. Now, go back to your class, and remember that you will help me most by being attentive and keeping the girls quiet, but not with blows. I do not keep you quiet and attentive, Ophelia, by striking you.”“No, please, teacher; but mother does.”“I prefer gentle means, my child. I want to rule you, if I can, by love.”Feelier looked sharply round to see if she was observed, and then bobbed down quickly, and before Hazel knew what the girl intended to do, she had kissed her hand and was gone.It was a trifling incident, but in Hazel’s depressed condition it brought the tears into her eyes, and made her think for the first time of how hard it would be to leave her girls if fate said that through this terrible defalcation she must give up the school. The toil had been hard, the work tiresome, but all the same there had been a something that had seemed to link her to the children, and she began to find out now how thoroughly her heart had been in her daily task.There were endless little troubles to encounter; even now there was a heap of confiscations taken from the children, petted objects that they carried in imitation of their brothers—sticky pieces of well-chewed indiarubber, marbles, buttons; one girl had a top which she persisted in bringing to school, though she could never get it to spin, and had twice been in difficulties for breaking windows with it—at times when its peg stuck to the end of the string. There were several papers of sweets, and an assortment of sweets without papers, and in that semi-glutinous state that comes over the best-made preparations of sugar after being submitted to a process of biscuiting in a warm pocket. Half-gnawed pieces of cake were there too, and fancy scraps of a something that would have puzzled the keenest observer, who could only have come to the conclusion that it was comestible, for it displayed teeth-marks. Without analysis it would not have been safe to venture upon a more decisive opinion.It had been imperceptible, this affection for her school, coming on by slow degrees; and as in the middle of her morning’s work Hazel suddenly found herself face to face with the possibility of having to resign, she felt startled, and began to realise that in spite of the many troubles and difficulties with which she had had to contend, Plumton had really been a haven of rest and the thought of going completely unnerved her.She started violently several times over as tap after tap came to the door; but the visitors were always in connection with the children. “Please, may Ann Straggalls come home? Her mother wants her.”“Please I’ve brought Sarah Jane Filler’s school money.” Then there were calls from a couple of itinerant vendors of wonderfully-got-up illustrated works, published in shilling and half-crown parts, to be continued to infinity, if the purchaser did not grow weary and give them up.At last there came a more decided knock than any of the others, and Hazel’s heart seemed to stand still. She knew, without telling, that it was the churchwarden, and she was in no wise surprised at seeing him walk in with his hat on, without waiting to have the door opened, but displaying a certain amount of proprietorship only to be expected from an official of the church.Mr Piper was the principal grocer of Plumton, and in addition to the sale of what he called “grosheries,” he dealt largely in cake—not the cake made with caraways or currants, but linseed oil-cake, bought by the farmers for fattening cattle and giving a help to the sheep. Mr Piper “did a little,” too, in corn, buying a lot now and then when it was cheap, and keeping it till it was dear. There were many other things in which Mr Piper “did a little,” but they were always bits of trading that meant making money; so that take him altogether, he was what people call “a warm man,” one who buttoned up his breeches-pockets tightly, and slapped them, as much as to say, “I don’t care a pin for a soul—I’m too independent for that.”This was the gentleman who, tightly buttoned up in his best coat, and looking, all the same, as if he still had his shop-apron tied, walked importantly into the school with his hat on, and nodded shortly as the girls began to rise and make bobs, the curtseys being addressed to the broadcloth coat more than to Mr Piper himself, a gentleman of whom all the elder girls had bought sweets, and who was associated in their minds with the rattling and clinking of copper scales with their weights. For a goodly sum per annum was expended by the Plumton school children in delicacies, a fact due to the kindness of Mr William Forth Burge, who always went down the town with half-a-crown’s worth of the cleanest halfpennies he could get, a large supply of which was always kept for him by Mr Piper’s young man, who even went so far as to give them a-shake-up in a large worsted stocking with some sand and a sprinkling of vitriol, knowing full well that these halfpence were pretty sure to come to him again in the course of trade.It was, then, to Mr Piper’s best coat that the girls made their bobs, that gentleman being held in small respect. In fact as soon as he entered Feelier Potts went round her class, insisting upon every girl accurately toeing the line; and then, whispering “Don’t laugh,” she began to repeat the words of the national poet who wrote those touching, interrogative lines beginning, “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,” and finishing off with, “Please, Mr Piper, I want a pen’orth of pickled peppers.”“’Morning, Miss Thorne,” said Mr Piper importantly, and speaking in his best-coat voice, which was loud and brassy, and very different to his mild, insinuating, “what’s-the-next-article, ma’am, yes-it-is-a-fine-morning” voice, which was used behind the counter, and went with a smile.“She ain’t ready with that money, I’ll lay a crown,” said Mr Piper to himself. Then aloud—“I have been getting Mr Chute’s school pence, Miss Thorne, to put in my accounts. I always collect the school money once a year.”Just then the school-door opened quietly, unheard by Hazel and the churchwarden, and also unnoticed by Miss Feelier Potts, who, forgetting all promises of amendment, was delighting her class by asking Mr Piper in a low voice for half-ounces and pen’orths of all sorts of impossible articles suggested by her active young brain, beginning with sugared soap, and on through boiled blacklead to peppermint mopsticks.The terrible moment had come, and Hazel said, as firmly as she could—“I am not ready with the accounts, Mr Piper; but I will see to them at once, and—”“Oh, all right: I’m in no hurry,” he replied; and Hazel’s heart gave a leap of relief, but only to sink down heavily the next moment, as he continued—“I always give one morning a year to this job, so get the money and a pen and ink, and I’ll soon run through it with you.”“You misunderstood me, Mr Piper,” faltered Hazel, whose cheeks began to burn before turning pale with shame. “I have made up the account but I have not the money ready.”“Couldn’t have made out the account properly without the money counted out ready,” he said triumphantly.“I checked it by the sums I had put down each week, Mr Piper,” said Hazel.“To be sure. Well, it won’t take us long to count the money out.”“But I have not the money by me,” said Hazel desperately, for she could make no excuse at the moment.“Oh!” said Mr Piper slowly, as he made a curious rasping noise by rubbing a rough finger upon his closely-shaven cheek: “have not got the money by you.”“No; not at present,” faltered Hazel; and once more the tell-tale blush came flushing to her cheeks.“Oh!” said Mr Piper again; and his interjection was as long as a ten-syllable word.“I will send or bring it up to you in a few days.”“Oh!” said Mr Piper once more, and he took out his pocket-book at the same time, but made no attempt to go. He slowly took a pencil from a sheath at the side, and examined its point before thrusting it in again, as if trying very hard to make sure that it was a fit.Hazel was in agony, and would have given anything to be alone, but Mr Piper went on testing the depth of his pencil-sheath in the leather pocket-book, and drawing the pencil out again.“You see, it always has been paid upon the morning I said I’d call. I’ve got Mr Chute’s money in here.”He slapped his breeches-pocket twice in a very emphatic manner, and looked at Hazel the while, as if asking her to deny it if she dared.“I—I was taken rather by surprise,” faltered Hazel.“Nay, nay,” said the churchwarden; “I gave you a day’s notice.”“Yes,” said Hazel, “but I was not ready. I will send or bring the amount in a few days, Mr Piper.”“I wanted to have made up my accounts,” he said, gazing still at his pencil and pocket-book in a meditative way. “You see, it puts me out, being a business-man. I have all this churchwarden work to do, and don’t get nothing by it, and it puts me wrong when things go contrary like, and I can’t get in the accounts. Now, your pence, for instance—I ought to have had them a month ago.”“I am very sorry, sir, but I was not aware when they ought to be paid in.”“You see, I make up all these parish things regular like, and if I can’t get the money in it throws me all out.”“I am very sorry, Mr Piper.”“Yes,” he said, turning his pencil upside down, and trying whether it would go in the reverse way; “but, you see, that don’t help a busy man. I give up one morning like this every year to the school accounts, and dress myself”—he glanced at the sleeve of his black coat—“and come down, and if the money isn’t ready, you see, it throws me out.”“Yes, I understand, Mr Piper,” faltered Hazel; “and I am very sorry.”“Yes,” he continued, trying to coax the pencil down by giving it a revolving movement, which succeeded better, though not well, for the leather of the pencil-sheath was getting worn with use, and it went into so many folds that Mr Piper had to withdraw the pencil and try it in the proper way—“Yes, it is a nuisance to a busy man,” he continued. “I don’t know why I go on doing this parish work, for it never pleases nobody, and takes up a deal of a man’s time. I wouldn’t do it, only Mr Lambent as good as begs of me not to give it up. P’r’aps you’ll give me what you have in hand, miss.”“Give you what I have in hand?” said Hazel.“Yes! Part on account you know, and send me the rest.”“I cannot, Mr Piper. I am not prepared,” said Hazel, who felt ready to sink with shame, and the degradation of being importuned at such a time.“Can’t you give me any of it on account—some of your own money, you know, miss!”“I really cannot sir; but I will endeavour to pay it over as soon as possible.”“Within a week?”“I—I think so,” faltered Hazel.Rap went the book open, and Mr Piper’s pencil was going as if it was taking down an order for “grosheries,” making a note to the effect that Miss Thorne could not pay the school pence upon the proper day, but would pay it within a week.Hazel stood and shivered, for it was horrible to see how business-like Mr Piper could be; and though she could not see the words he wrote, she mentally read them, and wondered how it would be possible to meet the engagement. Still, it was a respite, disgraceful as it seemed, and she felt her spirits rise as the churchwarden wrote away as busily as a commercial traveller who has just solicited what he calls a “line.”All this time the school-door was standing partly open, as if some one was waiting to come in, but Hazel was too intent to see.“That’ll do, then, for that,” said the churchwarden, shutting his book on the pencil and then peering sidewise like a magpie into one of the pockets, from which he extracted a carefully folded piece of blue paper, at the top of which was written very neatly, “Miss Thorne.”“As I was coming down, miss, I thought it would be a good chance for speaking to you about your account, miss, which keeps on getting too much behindhand; so p’r’aps you’ll give me something on account of that and pay the rest off as quick as you can.”“Your account, Mr Piper?” said Hazel, taking the paper.“Yes, miss. Small profits and quick returns is my motter. I don’t believe in giving credit—’tain’t my way. I should never get on if I did.”“But you mistake, Mr Piper; everything we have had of you has been paid for at the time, or at the end of the week.”“Don’t look like it, miss. When people won’t have nothing but my finest Hyson and Shoesong, and a bottle of the best port every week, bottles regularly returned, of course a bill soon runs up.”“But surely—” cried Hazel.“Oh, you’ll find it all right there, miss; every figure’s my own putting down. I always keep my own books myself, so it’s all right.”“Have you nearly done, Mr Piper?” said Miss Lambent, speaking sweetly, as she stood with Beatrice at the door. “Pray don’t hurry: we can wait. Our time’s not so valuable as yours.”“Just done, miss—just done, miss. You’ll find that quite right, Miss Thorne—eleven pun fifteen nine and a half. S’pose you give me six this morning and let the other stand for a week or two?”“Mr Piper, I must examine the bill,” said Hazel hoarsely. “I did not know that I was indebted to you more than half-a-sovereign.”“Oh, you’ll find that all right miss, all right. Can you let me have a little on account?”“I cannot this morning!” cried Hazel desperately.“May we come in now?” said Rebecca Lambent.“Yes, miss, come in,” said the churchwarden, closing his pocket-book as Hazel crushed this last horror in her hand in a weak dread lest it should be seen.“So you’ve been collecting the school accounts as usual, Mr Piper,” said Beatrice, smiling. “How much do they amount to this time? My brother will be so anxious to know.”Out came Mr Piper’s pocket-book again, the pencil was drawn from its sheath, and the page found.“Boys’ pence for the year ending the blank day of blank eighteen blank,” read Mr Piper, “thirty-two pound seven shillings and eightpence-ha’penny: though I can’t quite make out that ha’penny.”“And the girls’, Mr Piper—how much is that?”“Well, you see, Miss Thorne ain’t ready ’m yet so I can’t tell. It’s no use for me to put down the sum till I get the money. Good morning, miss. Good morning, miss. It’s a busy time with me, so I must go.”The churchwarden left the schoolroom, his hat still upon his head, and Hazel was left face to face with her friends from the Vicarage.“Had you not better call Mr Piper back, Miss Thorne,” said Rebecca.“Shall I call him, Miss Thorne?” said Beatrice eagerly.“No, ma’am, I thank you,” replied Hazel. “I explained to Mr Piper that I was not ready for him this morning.”“But did he not send word that he was coming?” said Rebecca suavely. “I know he always used to send down the day before.”“Yes, Miss Lambent; Mr Piper did send down, but I have not the money by me,” said Hazel desperately. “My—I mean we—had a pressing necessity for some money, and it has been used. I will pay Mr Piper, in the course of a few days.”Rebecca Lambent appeared to freeze as she glanced at her sister, who also became icy.“It is very strange,” said the former.“Quite contrary to our rules, I think, sister,” replied Beatrice, “Are you ready?”“Yes, dear. Good morning, Miss Thorne.”“Yes; good morning, Miss Thorne,” said Beatrice; and they swept out of the school together, remaining silent for the first hundred yards or so as they went homeward. “This is very extraordinary, Rebecca,” cried Beatrice at last, speaking with an assumption of horror and astonishment, but with joy in her heart.“Not at all extraordinary,” said Rebecca. “I am not in the least surprised. Unable to pay over the school pence and deeply in debt to the grocer! I wonder what she owes to the butcher and baker?”“And the draper!” said Beatrice malignantly. “A schoolmistress flaunting about with a silk parasol! What does a schoolmistress want with a parasol?”“She is not wax,” said Rebecca. “I rarely use one. And now look here, Beattie; it is all true, then, about that boy.”“What! Miss Thorne’s brother?”“Yes; Hazel Thorne’s brother. He was in trouble, then, in London, and fled here, and it seems as if the vice is in the family. Why, it is sheer embezzlement to keep back and spend the school pence. I wonder what Henry will say to his favourite now?”Meanwhile Hazel, whose head throbbed so heavily that she could hardly bear the pain, had dismissed the girls, for it was noon, and then hurried back to the cottage to seek her room, very rudely and sulkily, Mrs Thorne said, for she had spoken to her child as she passed through, but Hazel did not seem to hear.“I sincerely hope, my dears, that when you grow up,” said Mrs Thorne didactically, “you will never behave so rudely to your poor mamma as Hazel does.”“Hazel don’t mean to be rude, ma,” said Cissy in an old-fashioned way. “She has got a bad headache, that’s all. I’m going up to talk to her.”“No, Cissy; you will stay with me,” said Mrs Thorne authoritatively.“I may go, mayn’t I, ma? I want to talk to Hazel,” said Mab.“You will stay where you are, my dears; and I sincerely hope to be able to teach you both how to comport yourself towards your mamma. Hazel, I am sorry to say, has a good deal changed.”A good deal, truly; for she looked ghastly now, as she knelt by the bed, holding her aching head, and praying for help and strength of mind to get through her present difficulties and those which were to come.

“You must ask Mr Canninge, Hazel, or else Mr Burge or Mr Lambent,” said Mrs Thorne dictatorially. “Either you must ask one of those gentlemen, or I shall certainly feel that it is my duty to leave Plumton and seek a refuge at the home of one of my relatives.”

“Mother,” said Hazel decidedly, “I cannot ask one of those gentlemen. Can you not see that it would be a degradation that I could not bear?”

“If you would think less of your own degradation, Hazel, and more of mine,” said Mrs Thorne, “I think it would be far more becoming on your part.”

It was breakfast-time, and, hot-eyed, feverish, and weary, Hazel was trying to force down a few morsels of dry bread as she sipped her weak tea.

She made no reply, but was working hard to find some solution of the difficulty in which she found herself, but could see none.

One thing was evident to her, and that was the fact that she must take the full blame of the pence being missing, and undertake to pay it out of her next half-year’s salary. It was impossible for her to accuse her mother, and she could think of no relatives who would advance the money. Her head ached violently, and she was suffering from a severe attack of lassitude that deadened her brain-power making her ready to go back to her bed and try to forget everything in sleep.

But there was the day’s work to meet and at last, in a dreary, hopeless spirit, she went to the school, seeing Mr Chute on his way to the duties of the day, and meeting his eye, which was full of an ugly, malicious expression, that made her shrink and feel that she had indeed made this man her enemy.

The children were more tiresome than usual, or seemed to be, and it was only by a great effort that she was able to keep her attention to the work in hand.

At another time she would not have noticed it, but now every tap at the schoolhouse door made her start violently, and think that it was the churchwarden, Mr Piper, come for the school pence.

“A guilty conscience needs no accuser,” she thought to herself, as she set to once more trying to see her way to some solution of her difficulty, but always in vain; and at last she found herself letting the trouble drift till it should find bottom in some shallow shoal or against the shore, for nothing she could do would help her on.

The only thing she could hit upon was to say to the churchwarden that she would bring him up the money shortly, and in the meantime she might find out some means of raising it wishing the while that the jewellery of which she once had a plentiful supply was still her own.

She could think of no other plan, and was drearily going on with her work, when there came a loud tap from one of the lower classes, presided over at that time by Feelier Potts, and followed by a howl.

“What is that?”

“Please, teacher, Feely Potts hit me over the head with a book.”

“Please, teacher, I kep’ on telling her you’d got a bad headache, teacher, and told her to be quiet, and she would keep on making a noise, and—and—and I think I did box her with the Testament, teacher.”

“But you know, Ophelia how strictly I have forbidden any monitor to touch one of her class.”

“Yes, please, teacher; and I wouldn’t have touched her now, only I knew you’d got such a bad headache, and she would be so tiresome I felt as if I could knock her head right off.”

“Ophelia!” exclaimed Hazel, as she felt ready to smile at what was evidently a maternal expression.

“Please, teacher, I won’t do so no more.”

“Then go to your class. I shall trust you, mind. You have given me your word.”

“Yes, teacher,” cried the girl eagerly; “and is your head better, please, teacher!”

“No, Ophelia; it is very bad,” said Hazel wearily.

“Then, please, teacher, let me run home and get mother’s smelling-salts. She’s got a new twopenny bottle. Such strong ’uns. Do, please, let me go and fetch ’em, teacher.”

“Thank you; no, Ophelia,” said Hazel, smiling at the girl, whose eyes were sparkling with eagerness. “I have a bottle here. Now, go back to your class, and remember that you will help me most by being attentive and keeping the girls quiet, but not with blows. I do not keep you quiet and attentive, Ophelia, by striking you.”

“No, please, teacher; but mother does.”

“I prefer gentle means, my child. I want to rule you, if I can, by love.”

Feelier looked sharply round to see if she was observed, and then bobbed down quickly, and before Hazel knew what the girl intended to do, she had kissed her hand and was gone.

It was a trifling incident, but in Hazel’s depressed condition it brought the tears into her eyes, and made her think for the first time of how hard it would be to leave her girls if fate said that through this terrible defalcation she must give up the school. The toil had been hard, the work tiresome, but all the same there had been a something that had seemed to link her to the children, and she began to find out now how thoroughly her heart had been in her daily task.

There were endless little troubles to encounter; even now there was a heap of confiscations taken from the children, petted objects that they carried in imitation of their brothers—sticky pieces of well-chewed indiarubber, marbles, buttons; one girl had a top which she persisted in bringing to school, though she could never get it to spin, and had twice been in difficulties for breaking windows with it—at times when its peg stuck to the end of the string. There were several papers of sweets, and an assortment of sweets without papers, and in that semi-glutinous state that comes over the best-made preparations of sugar after being submitted to a process of biscuiting in a warm pocket. Half-gnawed pieces of cake were there too, and fancy scraps of a something that would have puzzled the keenest observer, who could only have come to the conclusion that it was comestible, for it displayed teeth-marks. Without analysis it would not have been safe to venture upon a more decisive opinion.

It had been imperceptible, this affection for her school, coming on by slow degrees; and as in the middle of her morning’s work Hazel suddenly found herself face to face with the possibility of having to resign, she felt startled, and began to realise that in spite of the many troubles and difficulties with which she had had to contend, Plumton had really been a haven of rest and the thought of going completely unnerved her.

She started violently several times over as tap after tap came to the door; but the visitors were always in connection with the children. “Please, may Ann Straggalls come home? Her mother wants her.”

“Please I’ve brought Sarah Jane Filler’s school money.” Then there were calls from a couple of itinerant vendors of wonderfully-got-up illustrated works, published in shilling and half-crown parts, to be continued to infinity, if the purchaser did not grow weary and give them up.

At last there came a more decided knock than any of the others, and Hazel’s heart seemed to stand still. She knew, without telling, that it was the churchwarden, and she was in no wise surprised at seeing him walk in with his hat on, without waiting to have the door opened, but displaying a certain amount of proprietorship only to be expected from an official of the church.

Mr Piper was the principal grocer of Plumton, and in addition to the sale of what he called “grosheries,” he dealt largely in cake—not the cake made with caraways or currants, but linseed oil-cake, bought by the farmers for fattening cattle and giving a help to the sheep. Mr Piper “did a little,” too, in corn, buying a lot now and then when it was cheap, and keeping it till it was dear. There were many other things in which Mr Piper “did a little,” but they were always bits of trading that meant making money; so that take him altogether, he was what people call “a warm man,” one who buttoned up his breeches-pockets tightly, and slapped them, as much as to say, “I don’t care a pin for a soul—I’m too independent for that.”

This was the gentleman who, tightly buttoned up in his best coat, and looking, all the same, as if he still had his shop-apron tied, walked importantly into the school with his hat on, and nodded shortly as the girls began to rise and make bobs, the curtseys being addressed to the broadcloth coat more than to Mr Piper himself, a gentleman of whom all the elder girls had bought sweets, and who was associated in their minds with the rattling and clinking of copper scales with their weights. For a goodly sum per annum was expended by the Plumton school children in delicacies, a fact due to the kindness of Mr William Forth Burge, who always went down the town with half-a-crown’s worth of the cleanest halfpennies he could get, a large supply of which was always kept for him by Mr Piper’s young man, who even went so far as to give them a-shake-up in a large worsted stocking with some sand and a sprinkling of vitriol, knowing full well that these halfpence were pretty sure to come to him again in the course of trade.

It was, then, to Mr Piper’s best coat that the girls made their bobs, that gentleman being held in small respect. In fact as soon as he entered Feelier Potts went round her class, insisting upon every girl accurately toeing the line; and then, whispering “Don’t laugh,” she began to repeat the words of the national poet who wrote those touching, interrogative lines beginning, “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,” and finishing off with, “Please, Mr Piper, I want a pen’orth of pickled peppers.”

“’Morning, Miss Thorne,” said Mr Piper importantly, and speaking in his best-coat voice, which was loud and brassy, and very different to his mild, insinuating, “what’s-the-next-article, ma’am, yes-it-is-a-fine-morning” voice, which was used behind the counter, and went with a smile.

“She ain’t ready with that money, I’ll lay a crown,” said Mr Piper to himself. Then aloud—“I have been getting Mr Chute’s school pence, Miss Thorne, to put in my accounts. I always collect the school money once a year.”

Just then the school-door opened quietly, unheard by Hazel and the churchwarden, and also unnoticed by Miss Feelier Potts, who, forgetting all promises of amendment, was delighting her class by asking Mr Piper in a low voice for half-ounces and pen’orths of all sorts of impossible articles suggested by her active young brain, beginning with sugared soap, and on through boiled blacklead to peppermint mopsticks.

The terrible moment had come, and Hazel said, as firmly as she could—

“I am not ready with the accounts, Mr Piper; but I will see to them at once, and—”

“Oh, all right: I’m in no hurry,” he replied; and Hazel’s heart gave a leap of relief, but only to sink down heavily the next moment, as he continued—“I always give one morning a year to this job, so get the money and a pen and ink, and I’ll soon run through it with you.”

“You misunderstood me, Mr Piper,” faltered Hazel, whose cheeks began to burn before turning pale with shame. “I have made up the account but I have not the money ready.”

“Couldn’t have made out the account properly without the money counted out ready,” he said triumphantly.

“I checked it by the sums I had put down each week, Mr Piper,” said Hazel.

“To be sure. Well, it won’t take us long to count the money out.”

“But I have not the money by me,” said Hazel desperately, for she could make no excuse at the moment.

“Oh!” said Mr Piper slowly, as he made a curious rasping noise by rubbing a rough finger upon his closely-shaven cheek: “have not got the money by you.”

“No; not at present,” faltered Hazel; and once more the tell-tale blush came flushing to her cheeks.

“Oh!” said Mr Piper again; and his interjection was as long as a ten-syllable word.

“I will send or bring it up to you in a few days.”

“Oh!” said Mr Piper once more, and he took out his pocket-book at the same time, but made no attempt to go. He slowly took a pencil from a sheath at the side, and examined its point before thrusting it in again, as if trying very hard to make sure that it was a fit.

Hazel was in agony, and would have given anything to be alone, but Mr Piper went on testing the depth of his pencil-sheath in the leather pocket-book, and drawing the pencil out again.

“You see, it always has been paid upon the morning I said I’d call. I’ve got Mr Chute’s money in here.”

He slapped his breeches-pocket twice in a very emphatic manner, and looked at Hazel the while, as if asking her to deny it if she dared.

“I—I was taken rather by surprise,” faltered Hazel.

“Nay, nay,” said the churchwarden; “I gave you a day’s notice.”

“Yes,” said Hazel, “but I was not ready. I will send or bring the amount in a few days, Mr Piper.”

“I wanted to have made up my accounts,” he said, gazing still at his pencil and pocket-book in a meditative way. “You see, it puts me out, being a business-man. I have all this churchwarden work to do, and don’t get nothing by it, and it puts me wrong when things go contrary like, and I can’t get in the accounts. Now, your pence, for instance—I ought to have had them a month ago.”

“I am very sorry, sir, but I was not aware when they ought to be paid in.”

“You see, I make up all these parish things regular like, and if I can’t get the money in it throws me all out.”

“I am very sorry, Mr Piper.”

“Yes,” he said, turning his pencil upside down, and trying whether it would go in the reverse way; “but, you see, that don’t help a busy man. I give up one morning like this every year to the school accounts, and dress myself”—he glanced at the sleeve of his black coat—“and come down, and if the money isn’t ready, you see, it throws me out.”

“Yes, I understand, Mr Piper,” faltered Hazel; “and I am very sorry.”

“Yes,” he continued, trying to coax the pencil down by giving it a revolving movement, which succeeded better, though not well, for the leather of the pencil-sheath was getting worn with use, and it went into so many folds that Mr Piper had to withdraw the pencil and try it in the proper way—“Yes, it is a nuisance to a busy man,” he continued. “I don’t know why I go on doing this parish work, for it never pleases nobody, and takes up a deal of a man’s time. I wouldn’t do it, only Mr Lambent as good as begs of me not to give it up. P’r’aps you’ll give me what you have in hand, miss.”

“Give you what I have in hand?” said Hazel.

“Yes! Part on account you know, and send me the rest.”

“I cannot, Mr Piper. I am not prepared,” said Hazel, who felt ready to sink with shame, and the degradation of being importuned at such a time.

“Can’t you give me any of it on account—some of your own money, you know, miss!”

“I really cannot sir; but I will endeavour to pay it over as soon as possible.”

“Within a week?”

“I—I think so,” faltered Hazel.

Rap went the book open, and Mr Piper’s pencil was going as if it was taking down an order for “grosheries,” making a note to the effect that Miss Thorne could not pay the school pence upon the proper day, but would pay it within a week.

Hazel stood and shivered, for it was horrible to see how business-like Mr Piper could be; and though she could not see the words he wrote, she mentally read them, and wondered how it would be possible to meet the engagement. Still, it was a respite, disgraceful as it seemed, and she felt her spirits rise as the churchwarden wrote away as busily as a commercial traveller who has just solicited what he calls a “line.”

All this time the school-door was standing partly open, as if some one was waiting to come in, but Hazel was too intent to see.

“That’ll do, then, for that,” said the churchwarden, shutting his book on the pencil and then peering sidewise like a magpie into one of the pockets, from which he extracted a carefully folded piece of blue paper, at the top of which was written very neatly, “Miss Thorne.”

“As I was coming down, miss, I thought it would be a good chance for speaking to you about your account, miss, which keeps on getting too much behindhand; so p’r’aps you’ll give me something on account of that and pay the rest off as quick as you can.”

“Your account, Mr Piper?” said Hazel, taking the paper.

“Yes, miss. Small profits and quick returns is my motter. I don’t believe in giving credit—’tain’t my way. I should never get on if I did.”

“But you mistake, Mr Piper; everything we have had of you has been paid for at the time, or at the end of the week.”

“Don’t look like it, miss. When people won’t have nothing but my finest Hyson and Shoesong, and a bottle of the best port every week, bottles regularly returned, of course a bill soon runs up.”

“But surely—” cried Hazel.

“Oh, you’ll find it all right there, miss; every figure’s my own putting down. I always keep my own books myself, so it’s all right.”

“Have you nearly done, Mr Piper?” said Miss Lambent, speaking sweetly, as she stood with Beatrice at the door. “Pray don’t hurry: we can wait. Our time’s not so valuable as yours.”

“Just done, miss—just done, miss. You’ll find that quite right, Miss Thorne—eleven pun fifteen nine and a half. S’pose you give me six this morning and let the other stand for a week or two?”

“Mr Piper, I must examine the bill,” said Hazel hoarsely. “I did not know that I was indebted to you more than half-a-sovereign.”

“Oh, you’ll find that all right miss, all right. Can you let me have a little on account?”

“I cannot this morning!” cried Hazel desperately.

“May we come in now?” said Rebecca Lambent.

“Yes, miss, come in,” said the churchwarden, closing his pocket-book as Hazel crushed this last horror in her hand in a weak dread lest it should be seen.

“So you’ve been collecting the school accounts as usual, Mr Piper,” said Beatrice, smiling. “How much do they amount to this time? My brother will be so anxious to know.”

Out came Mr Piper’s pocket-book again, the pencil was drawn from its sheath, and the page found.

“Boys’ pence for the year ending the blank day of blank eighteen blank,” read Mr Piper, “thirty-two pound seven shillings and eightpence-ha’penny: though I can’t quite make out that ha’penny.”

“And the girls’, Mr Piper—how much is that?”

“Well, you see, Miss Thorne ain’t ready ’m yet so I can’t tell. It’s no use for me to put down the sum till I get the money. Good morning, miss. Good morning, miss. It’s a busy time with me, so I must go.”

The churchwarden left the schoolroom, his hat still upon his head, and Hazel was left face to face with her friends from the Vicarage.

“Had you not better call Mr Piper back, Miss Thorne,” said Rebecca.

“Shall I call him, Miss Thorne?” said Beatrice eagerly.

“No, ma’am, I thank you,” replied Hazel. “I explained to Mr Piper that I was not ready for him this morning.”

“But did he not send word that he was coming?” said Rebecca suavely. “I know he always used to send down the day before.”

“Yes, Miss Lambent; Mr Piper did send down, but I have not the money by me,” said Hazel desperately. “My—I mean we—had a pressing necessity for some money, and it has been used. I will pay Mr Piper, in the course of a few days.”

Rebecca Lambent appeared to freeze as she glanced at her sister, who also became icy.

“It is very strange,” said the former.

“Quite contrary to our rules, I think, sister,” replied Beatrice, “Are you ready?”

“Yes, dear. Good morning, Miss Thorne.”

“Yes; good morning, Miss Thorne,” said Beatrice; and they swept out of the school together, remaining silent for the first hundred yards or so as they went homeward. “This is very extraordinary, Rebecca,” cried Beatrice at last, speaking with an assumption of horror and astonishment, but with joy in her heart.

“Not at all extraordinary,” said Rebecca. “I am not in the least surprised. Unable to pay over the school pence and deeply in debt to the grocer! I wonder what she owes to the butcher and baker?”

“And the draper!” said Beatrice malignantly. “A schoolmistress flaunting about with a silk parasol! What does a schoolmistress want with a parasol?”

“She is not wax,” said Rebecca. “I rarely use one. And now look here, Beattie; it is all true, then, about that boy.”

“What! Miss Thorne’s brother?”

“Yes; Hazel Thorne’s brother. He was in trouble, then, in London, and fled here, and it seems as if the vice is in the family. Why, it is sheer embezzlement to keep back and spend the school pence. I wonder what Henry will say to his favourite now?”

Meanwhile Hazel, whose head throbbed so heavily that she could hardly bear the pain, had dismissed the girls, for it was noon, and then hurried back to the cottage to seek her room, very rudely and sulkily, Mrs Thorne said, for she had spoken to her child as she passed through, but Hazel did not seem to hear.

“I sincerely hope, my dears, that when you grow up,” said Mrs Thorne didactically, “you will never behave so rudely to your poor mamma as Hazel does.”

“Hazel don’t mean to be rude, ma,” said Cissy in an old-fashioned way. “She has got a bad headache, that’s all. I’m going up to talk to her.”

“No, Cissy; you will stay with me,” said Mrs Thorne authoritatively.

“I may go, mayn’t I, ma? I want to talk to Hazel,” said Mab.

“You will stay where you are, my dears; and I sincerely hope to be able to teach you both how to comport yourself towards your mamma. Hazel, I am sorry to say, has a good deal changed.”

A good deal, truly; for she looked ghastly now, as she knelt by the bed, holding her aching head, and praying for help and strength of mind to get through her present difficulties and those which were to come.

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