Belle snatched her hand away.
“I hate being petted and fondled,” she said; “we never do that at North Hall, it is so schoolgirlish—at least not those girls who are worth anything. In every house of residence, in every college, there are drones, poor useless creatures, who follow the busy bees; but at St. Wode’s such dangerous adjuncts to the public peace are generally rooted out. Miss Lauderdale, our adored principal, sees to that. Now, girls, if you wish to hear what the busy bees do, I will tell you.”
“I wish you would begin,” said Lettie; “you do nothing but walk round the subject and never attack it.”
“I don’t suppose it will interest you,” said Belle; “but here goes.—By the way, have either of you two”—as she spoke she turned to Eileen and Marjorie—“have either of you two ever been to St. Wode’s College, Wingfield?”
“Never,” said Eileen; “but Fay Everett, a girl at our school, has a sister there, and she sometimes describes the place to us. She said the students’ rooms were so sweetly pretty, and that each girl could exercise her own individual taste.”
“Good gracious! am I sitting here to talk of the girls who are supposed to have taste?” cried Belle. “Taste, what is taste? It is nothing but a device of the Evil One for wasting time. I am here to talk to you about the students, the real students. I, for instance, have a room. Would you like to know how my room is furnished?”
Letitia gave a perceptible shudder, and walking to the window deliberately shut it.
“What are you doing that for?” said Eileen. “It is going to be a very hot day.”
“I felt a sudden chill,” said Lettie.
“Well, do let the window remain shut; what does it matter?” cried Belle. “I have placed myself high above the mere influence of the weather. Is it hot? is it cold? I can never tell; I simply don’t know. My mind is absorbed in abstruse speculations and such trivial matters as bodily discomforts cannot touch it. Oh, girls, it is grand to allow your mind to soar! Have you, for instance, ever dipped deep into the intricacies of Virgil?”
“Never,” said Eileen.
She looked at Marjorie.
“I don’t think, after all,” she continued, “we wish to be so very learned. Our idea was to be just useful, plain sort of women. Of course we should never think of marrying; but we should like to be women who help their fellow-creatures, who are ready to take their place in a sudden emergency. We want to know a little about nursing, something too about medicine. We should not object to going through a regular course of household training; but as to learning, we don’t want to be bookworms.”
“In that case, why, in the name of Heaven, have I been asked over here?” cried Belle. “Is my precious time to be wasted?” Here she jumped up suddenly and confronted the two girls. In her agitation and anger her spectacles dropped from her nose; they fell with a crash on the floor, and one glass was broken.
“Now, what am I to do?” said Belle. “Oh, the irreparable injury you two girls have done me! One of my glasses is broken, and I, who have astigmatism in one eye, cannot get it mended in a hurry. It is cracked right across. Most fortunately I took the precaution to provide myself with another pair, or I should be lost, simply lost. Oh dear! what a wasted afternoon!”
“But can’t you tell us what you were going to say, even without seeing us very plainly?” said Eileen. “Do, Belle, sit down and be comfortable; tell us everything. We are not at all settled in our own minds as to what we will do yet. You have a room, and it is not ornamental. Well, we don’t care about ornamental rooms. This room is bare, is it not?”
“Bare! Do you call this a bare room?” cried Belle. “There are six chairs, for instance. Do you ever expect to entertain six people in the room where you work? In addition to the six ordinary chairs there is an armchair. Who wants to loll in an armchair? There is also a bench on which I am now sitting. Tell me, is a bench necessary as well as six ordinary chairs and an armchair? Are four tables required? Is that carpet essential? Does it stimulate the brain to keep the feet upon a carpet? Are those thick curtains necessary—they are only traps to collect dirt. Blinds to the windows I grant are required, or people might stare in. Oh yes, I will allow blinds; they are necessary. Now I will tell you about my room. I have asked to be put in one of the attics. The house is very full, and the vice-principal of North Hall, Miss Penrose, was quite willing to oblige me. The attic was not furnished when I got it, and I begged and implored of her to allow me to furnish it in my own way. I have therefore a camp-bed in one corner, a particularly narrow one. There is a small, hard mattress on it; The counterpane is colored; it is dark-blue, and does not require to be washed often—that is one item off the mind. The mind, my dear girls—that is, the minds of those who are students at St. Wode’s College—have such deep problems to solve that they cannot be fretted by external worries. The minds of the real students must be left free to solve problems—the intricacies of Virgil, the great masterpieces of Homer, Dante in his magnificent original——”
Belle had now forgotten her auditors. She ceased staring at them, her glasses were useless, her eyes were dim; but nevertheless she herself was seeing visions.
Marjorie patted her on the arm.
“Go on, Belle, go on,” she said; “we will find out about Virgil and Homer and Dante presently. Now, what else have you in the room? You cannot live in a room that contains nothing but a camp-bed and a blind, and at present that is all you have admitted.”
“I have a desk, specially made for myself, in the window,” continued Belle; “there is a stool, a high stool, on which I sit. The stool has no back; I should scorn to lean back. I have a shelf on the wall which contains my books—my few books, twenty in all—standard works, mostly in the classics. Amongst them are to be found Polybius, Appian’s Civil War (Book 1.), Cicero’s Letters, Plato’s Republic, Bacon’s Novum Organum, Aristotle’s Politics, Locke On the Human Understanding, and——”
“Good gracious!”
Lettie was the one who made this exclamation.
“Quiet, quiet, Lettie; do let her finish,” said Eileen. She kicked out her foot and gave Lettie a poke.
Letitia drew in her own neatly shod little foot and sat with her hands folded in her lap and her eyes dancing with suppressed mirth.
“I have a chair besides the one I occupy,” continued Belle. “That chair is for a friend if a friend happens to come in. There is a small deal table upon which I never allow a cloth to be put, as it is apt to come off and spill the ink—such waste of time sopping up ink. Often, in my moments of frenzy, have I jumped up suddenly and pulled the cloth with me. You don’t know what I feel at times with the greatness of the thoughts which surge through my brain. Having spilt the ink three or four times, I have discarded the cloth. A washhand-stand is of course essential, and there is a chest of drawers where I keep my things.”
“By the way, how many dresses have you, Belle?” said Eileen suddenly. “Two—have you two?”
“I cannot tell you,” replied Belle, turning her eyes towards Eileen, and looking at her as if she did not see her. “I have not the faintest idea what dresses I have. Mother supplies them. I put a dress on in the morning—I take it off at night. Occasionally, in the excitement of my thoughts, I have been known to come down to breakfast in an evening dress. I will admit that this has attracted attention and annoyed me; so as a rule I am careful to see that it is a morning dress which I am about to wear.”
“But do you think evening dresses necessary at all?” said Eileen in an anxious voice. “We think it would be so much more useful to save our money. Marjorie and I mean to do great good in the world.”
“Then if you will take my advice,” said Belle, jumping to her feet, “you will come as soon as possible to St. Wode’s. When you are there I will talk to you again. I cannot waste any more time to-day. You will have to pass in Responsions; but doubtless that could be easily managed. Yes, when you are there I shall do my utmost to guide you. Marjorie, just let me place my finger on your brow; I shall be able to tell you in a moment whether you will be able to manage Virgil.”
Marjorie submitted to this test with exemplary patience. Lettie laughed aloud.
“You’ll do,” cried Belle. “I’ll just enter your name in my book. ‘Marjorie Chetwynd comes to St. Wode’s College as soon as possible.’ The spring term begins in a fortnight, Marjorie, so you have little time to lose.—Now, Eileen, let me look at you. Yes, you also would do well; but I think perhaps your forte will be modern languages and English literature. All lighter accomplishments you will of course eschew.”
“Oh, please don’t leave the room,” said Lettie, bounding forward, “until you have placed your fingers on my brow to see what I am worth. Really, this is most interesting. You are a kind of magician, Belle.”
“You will be one of the frivols; one of the drones of our hive,” replied Belle sternly. “Don’t, I beg of you, come to St. Wode’s.”
“I can only tell you this,” answered Lettie, running after Belle as she was flying downstairs, “if Eileen and Marjorie go I mean to accompany them.”
Belle Acheson was a young woman who never let the grass grow under her feet. Having rushed downstairs at a headlong speed, she now presented herself in the drawing-room.
“I have just examined the frontal developments of Marjorie’s and Eileen’s heads,” she said, speaking in a loud, rapid voice, and glancing in the direction where Mrs. Chetwynd and Mrs. Acheson were seated together on a sofa. “I have examined the frontal developments of the two girls, and I am glad to tell you that they both show marked intellectuality. I have recommended them to join me at St. Wode’s College, Wingfield, immediately. Will you, therefore, Mrs. Chetwynd, kindly take the necessary steps to see that this is carried out? You must write to our principal, Miss Lauderdale, asking her to give you all particulars as to the necessary steps to be taken for admission. If the girls have not already passed some public examination, they must pass Responsions. The subjects are Latin, Greek, mathematics. But if they have already passed the London Matriculation, or the Cambridge Higher Local, or the——”
“My dear, my dear!” cried Mrs. Acheson, “you are positively bewildering my dear friend. What are you driving at?”
“I am driving at nothing,” said Belle, in a voice of dignity. “I am stating facts. The girls wish to enter St. Wode’s. To do so they must have passed, or will have to pass, certain examinations; but the main thing is to write to Miss Lauderdale. Her address is Miss Lauderdale, Principal of St. Wode’s College, Wingfield. Did you speak, Mrs. Chetwynd?”
“I did not,” replied Mrs. Chetwynd, in an angry voice. “Will you take a chair, please? Can I give you a cup of tea?”
“Tea?” cried Belle. “I never take tea, thank you; but I should like a glass of water, please, for my throat is quite dry with all the talking I have been obliged to go through. Don’t you know, Mrs. Chetwynd, that tea is decidedly bad for the brain, and also for the coats of the stomach. Oh, it has a shocking effect. Our best tutors at St. Wode’s never countenance tea. Coffee, strong black coffee, one is obliged to take now and then, particularly when one has to sit up at night before an exam. for honors. Coffee and a wet towel; but tea—no, thank you. Will you permit me to ring for a glass of water? I was giving the girls a lecture upstairs; they have a great deal to learn.”
Belle did not wait for Mrs. Chetwynd’s most unwilling permission. She sounded the electric bell by the fireplace, and presently the footman appeared. Water was supplied, and the young lady took a copious draught.
“That is refreshing,” she cried as she placed her glass on the tray. “Now, then, mother, we must be off. Come, we have no more time to waste. I have promised Anne Morrison to call on her before dinner to-day; she wants me to look over some of her matriculation papers, and I must on no account fail her.”
“But, my dear Belle, Anne Morrison lives at the south side of London, and I am so tired,” said poor Mrs. Acheson.
“Dear me, mother; have not you strength enough for that much! We will take a bus at the corner and get to Norland Square in no time. Come, don’t you think you have had quite as much frivolous conversation as is good for you? Now, Mrs. Chetwynd, don’t forget to write. The address is Miss Lauderdale, Principal of St. Wode’s College, Wingfield. Come along, mother. By-by, Mrs. Chetwynd.”
Poor Mrs. Acheson cast anxious eyes of misery and commiseration at her friend, and was hurled out of the room by the emphatic Belle. A moment or two later the hall-door was shut behind the pair.
“Thank goodness, they are gone at last!” cried Mrs. Chetwynd. “My dear Lettie, is that you? Come here, child, come here. Now, tell me, what did that awful girl say to the children?”
“Here are the children coming down to answer for themselves,” said Marjorie, springing lightly into the room accompanied by Eileen.
“Oh, darling little mammy, what is the matter?” cried Marjorie. She ran up to her mother and kissed her. “Why, you look quite worried, you dear old thing. Let me smooth out those furrows on your dear brow! Ah! you look more like yourself now. Come, sit here, and I will sit near you. I will pet you, and you will soon forget all your worries. Is it not good, mammy dear, to have a grown-up daughter on whom to lean?”
“But if the grown-up daughter won’t be leant on,” cried poor Mrs. Chetwynd. “Oh, my child, everything seems to be topsy-turvy; and that appalling girl, for there is no other word for her——”
“Of course the world did turn topsy-turvy twenty years ago,” said Eileen. “For women everything is completely changed. We who were so low are now in the ascendant. It is men who are nowhere. You, dear mammy, must be guided by us for the remainder of your days. You will live here, of course, or anywhere else you fancy, and we will spend our vacations with you.”
“My dear, dear Eileen, you don’t know what you are talking about. That terrible girl has inoculated you with her democratic views. She is a fearful creature, a sort of monster; and the queer, extraordinary things she said, and the way she hurled her poor mother out of the room, I have really no words to describe. I do pity Mrs. Acheson; but if you think for a single moment, Eileen, that I am going to submit to you and Marjorie having the upper hand and managing your own lives, you are mistaken.”
Eileen uttered a deep sigh.
“It will be troublesome,” she said slowly, “and we would much rather not be troublesome; it would worry you, and we would much rather not worry you. Mammy, why don’t you give in at once? It would be so much more graceful of you, mammy; it would really.”
“Yes, mother; I wish you would,” said Marjorie.
“But what am I to give in about?” said Mrs. Chetwynd.—“Letitia, have you nothing to say? You have lived with us since you were a baby; in every respect you have been treated as a daughter of the house. Can’t you speak, can’t you show these insubordinate, wicked girls how dreadfully they are acting?”
“It is useless,” said Lettie, shrugging her shoulders; “they are determined to have their own way. I am afraid you must bear it, Aunt Helen.”
Mrs. Chetwynd burst into tears. Marjorie and Eileen looked at her with eyes full of pity.
“I wish it was not necessary,” said Eileen. “I do wish we could comfort you, dear old mammy. I do wish we could say that we would be presented to Her Majesty, and go into society six evenings out of the seven; but you see we just can’t, and it would be the maddest weakness to yield.”
“Go into society I will not,” said Marjorie. “I have made up my mind. I also think what Belle said is excellent; and after two or three years of that splendid training, I am——”
“Yes, yes, yes. I too have made up my mind,” interrupted Eileen. “Mother, dear, you will write to-night?”
“To Miss Lauderdale?” said poor Mrs. Chetwynd; “that awful girl gave me the name. What in the wide world am I to write to her about?”
“To get all the necessary particulars, as we want to go to St. Wode’s at the beginning of term.”
“Oh, my child, I cannot permit it,” said Mrs. Chetwynd.
“But, mother dear, do listen,” said Marjorie. She sat down by her mother and began to speak. Eileen took her mother’s other hand. The girls could talk well; they had plenty of intellect, and they could expound their views in a simple and yet telling manner. Now, Mrs. Chetwynd could never answer any argument which required a logical deduction. She was therefore completely worsted by her clever and modern daughters. Each of her little excuses, each of her small efforts to get the girls to remain at home with her, to go into society, to lead the ordinary life of the ordinary young woman, were quietly and politely demolished by both Eileen and Marjorie. Finally, Mrs. Chetwynd found herself saying she would think about the matter. All three girls knew well that when Mrs. Chetwynd went as far as that the thing was accomplished.
“Don’t worry the mammy any more now,” said Eileen. “Lie back in your chair, dear mammy. Lettie, run upstairs for mother’s eau de Cologne; we will put some on her forehead. Poor dear darling, she’s the sweetest mother in all the world; isn’t she, Marjorie?”
“A perfect angel,” said Marjorie.
She stooped and kissed her mother. Eileen also kissed her. There they stood in their shabby dresses, a little piece of Eileen’s petticoat peeping below her skirt, their short hair pushed up from their foreheads, their handsome faces alight with fire and excitement.
Mrs. Chetwynd glanced at them, and despair entered her soul. She had not the slightest chance against them; and she knew it.
The girls left the room, and only Letitia remained behind.
“Well, Lettie, you at least will remain with me,” said Mrs. Chetwynd. “It is terrible to feel that I have brought girls like Marjorie and Eileen into the world. My only comfort is that their poor dear father—such a kind, scholarly, soldierly man—is not here to witness their base ingratitude.”
“But really, Aunt Helen, I don’t think they are base nor ungrateful. They are just modern, you see—terribly modern, the reverse of archaic. They must keep with the times; that they have determined on. There is no use whatever in opposing them. Doubtless life will teach them its own lesson, and they will be delightful when they return from St. Wode’s.”
“How long must they stay there?” asked Mrs. Chetwynd. She took up her handkerchief as she spoke, to wipe away the tears from her eyes.
“I believe the usual course is three years,” said Lettie. “You cannot get your certificate, which is equivalent to a degree, under that time.”
“Your certificate, which is equivalent to a degree, Lettie! Oh, my child, not a man living will speak to the girls. They will never be married, Lettie; they will be old maids to the end of the chapter. It is fearful to think of it!”
“Well, they don’t actually take a degree, because it is not allowed,” said Lettie; “but they work for it, and they get the honor.”
“Worse and worse,” cried Mrs. Chetwynd. “You see how sternly the men disapprove of this fearful step on the part of modern women.”
Letitia suppressed a short sigh.
“The girls are modern, and nothing will make them anything else,” she said.
“And yet, my dear, they are the reverse of fashionable.”
“Oh, Aunt Helen, I think fashionable women are going out.”
“Going out, my dear! What can you mean?”
“I really do think so; there will be fewer and fewer as time goes on. We are so terribly earnest now, we have no time to think of mere ornamentation.”
“Thank goodness, Lettie, you at least will always dress neatly.”
“I should think so,” replied Lettie. “I honestly confess that I am quite fond of clothes, and I like to look smart.”
“Well, dear, it is a comfort that I shall have you to stay with me.”
“But, Aunt Helen, I am ever so sorry. I think you ought to let me go too.”
“You, Lettie? You go to St. Wode’s College? What do you mean?”
“I think I ought to go, if for no other reason than to watch those two poor dear girls through this eccentric phase of their existence. Think of them, Aunt Helen, alone with Belle Acheson!”
“There is something in what you say,” said Mrs. Chetwynd; “and as Mrs. Acheson intends to go on the Continent in the winter, and she wishes me to—oh, of course I pooh-poohed the idea; but I really think I shall do it now. I shall go about from one fashionable place to another and amuse myself, and try to forget that I have children. Oh, it is a cruel, a crushing disappointment.”
“You will live through it,” said Lettie. She bent and kissed Mrs. Chetwynd on her cheek.
“After all,” she continued, “there is no good in forcing Marjorie and Eileen into grooves which were never meant for them. You will write to Miss Lauderdale, will you not, to-night?”
“My dear child, have the goodness to write to her yourself, and I will sign the letter. I have not the faintest idea what I am to say to that woman.”
“I will write, then, at once,” said Lettie.
She skipped across the drawing-room to her aunt’s davenport, took out a sheet of paper, rapidly wrote a few words, and then brought her letter to Mrs. Chetwynd to sign. In less than an hour that letter was dropped into the nearest pillar-box.
Thus was the fate of the three girls quickly decided.
The Gilroys lived in a small house in West Kensington. The house was full to overflowing. There were a great many children, ranging from Leslie the eldest girl, aged nineteen, to little Dan, aged two. Mrs. Gilroy was one of the busiest women in London. She had a small income, not exceeding three hundred a year, and six children to maintain. When her husband died, a month before little Dan’s birth, the mother made up her mind not to skimp the children’s education, not to starve them on a mere pittance, but to add to her income by her own exertions. She was very clever and strong both in mind and body. All her children loved her passionately.
Mr. Gilroy, during his lifetime, had been sub-editor on a large London daily, and after his death Mrs. Gilroy got a post on the staff. She also did a good deal of other journalistic work, and occasionally wrote up-to-date articles in the magazines. Thus she added considerably to her income, and the children never wanted for anything.
The house was a model of neatness and order, although there was only one small servant; but then each child had been trained thoroughly, and each child did his or her appointed task without a murmur. The faces of all the young Gilroys were bright, all the pairs of eyes were frank and happy; but the mother had to work very hard. Often and often, when all the children were in bed, she sat up or went round from one editor’s office to another supplying the necessary items which would appear the next morning in the papers. She enjoyed her work and never complained; and Llewellyn and Leslie, the eldest boy and girl, sympathized heart and soul with her.
On the very day when Belle Acheson had visited the Chetwynds in their fashionable house in Belgravia, Mrs. Gilroy, coming in later than usual, found Llewellyn, a handsome lad of sixteen years of age, crouching over the fire in the little parlor, with his head in his hands.
“What is wrong, Lew?” said the mother.
“Nothing,” he answered. “I have only been thinking.”
“But what about, my boy?”
Mrs. Gilroy seldom petted her children, she seldom used loving words to them; but then her touch was a caress. She laid her hand now upon the lad’s shoulder; he looked up into her kindly firm face; and the shadow fell from his own.
“It’s just nothing,” he cried. “I ought to be ashamed of myself. Don’t ask me at the present moment, mother. I have a fit of the blues, that’s all.”
“Well, and I have a fit of the cheerfuls,” said Mrs. Gilroy.
“What do you mean, mother?” Llewellyn was all life and spirits in a moment. “Has anything good happened; have you got another post? Are you to be made sub-editor on one of the great dailies; that, you know, is your ambition, your great passionate ambition, little mother.”
“Nothing of the kind at present, Lew, dear. I am just where I always was. I have plenty of work, and I am paid fairly well; but I have good news all the same. I will tell you afterwards. It has to do with Leslie. It will be the finest thing in all the world for her, simply the making of her.”
Llewellyn’s face once more looked downcast. He did not want his mother to observe it, however, and he went slowly to the door.
“I had better let Kitty and Mabel know that you are in,” he said.
He went into the little hall and shouted his sisters’ names. The next moment two trim, neatly-dressed little girls, with long hair hanging down their shoulders, in dark-blue frocks and white pinafores, came tripping in.
“Mother’s come,” said Llewellyn; “she wants tea. Sound the gong when it is ready.”
He bounded up the narrow stairs three at a time to his own special den at the top of the house. There, big, handsome, overgrown boy that he was, he shed some tears. He was ashamed of his tears; they scalded right down into his heart.
“I wish I didn’t feel it so much,” he said to himself. “I just had a wild hope for a moment, when mother spoke about good news, that it had something to do with me. But it’s only Leslie. Well, dear old girl, why shouldn’t it be about her? What a brute I am to grudge it to her. She is mother’s right hand, and about the very best girl in the world. There, I shall hate myself if I give way another moment. I’ll just tell mother right out, and put an end to the thing. She’ll be a bit surprised, but I guess she’ll be only too glad to consent. It’s good-by to daydreams, that’s all; but a fellow can’t think of them when his mother is in the question.”
Meanwhile the girls downstairs were quickly preparing the tea. Kitty went to the kitchen to fetch the tray with the cups and saucers; Mabel laid the white cloth, which was made of the finest damask, on the center table. Kitty then knelt down before the fire to make an apparently unlimited supply of buttered toast; Mabel put the right amount of tea into the old teapot. There were many relics of bygone respectability, nay, of bygone wealth, in the Gilroys’ humble house. The silver teapot was one—it was real silver, not electroplate. It was very thin and of an antique shape, and the children were often heard to declare that nothing would induce them to have their tea made in anything else. The cups and saucers, too, were of rare old china and of a quaint pattern. They were neither cracked nor broken, because the girls themselves washed them and looked after them, and put them away in the little pantry.
The small maid of all work, Elfreda, was never allowed to go near the pantry. She only did the rough work under severe superintendence from Kitty; but the house was perfectly organized, and no one felt unduly fatigued.
The tea, when it was ready, consisted of fresh eggs, honey in the comb, hot cakes which Mabel had been secretly watching for the last half-hour, a pile of buttered toast, bread both brown and white, delicious country butter, tea, and even cream.
When everything was in order, Mabel sounded the gong, and Llewellyn came down.
He had scarcely taken his place at the table before there was the click of a latchkey in the hall door, and light steps, the steps of a young girl, were heard in the passage outside.
“There’s Leslie,” said Mrs. Gilroy. She was seated at the head of her table pouring out tea. She paused now, and a look of considerable expectancy filled her eyes. Llewellyn watched her; the others, engaged in their own chatter, took no special notice.
“Leslie, late as usual,” said Mabel. Just at that moment Leslie poked in her head.
“Oh, do just keep a nice hot cup of tea for me,” she called out. “I am starving. There has been such a cold wind blowing, and I had to walk half the way, as every omnibus was full. I’ll just run upstairs to tidy up. Please keep a right good tea for me; I’ll trust you, Mabel.”
“Yes, you may,” shouted out Mabel. “I am keeping back the crispest of the hot cakes, and there is buttered toast in a covered dish by the fire.”
Leslie’s steps were heard running quickly upstairs, and a minute or two later she entered the room. She was a tall girl, with quantities of golden-brown hair, large brown eyes, a complexion of cream and roses, and straight regular features. It needed but a glance to show that she was a beautiful girl, with beauty above the average; but it was not only the regularity of her features and the clearness of her complexion which made Leslie’s face so specially attractive. It was the marked and wonderful intelligence on her open brow, the speaking, thoughtful expression in her eyes, the firm, proud outline of her beautiful lips.
Mrs. Gilroy just glanced up when her eldest daughter came into the room. That one glance showed that the girl was the mother’s special idol; that she loved her with a worship which was almost idolatry, that she was a shade more proud of her and dreamt more daydreams about her than about any of the others.
Llewellyn, who could read his mother like a book, who loved her passionately, saw all these thoughts now in her eyes. He suppressed a sigh, and attacked the loaf with vigor.
“Come, Leslie,” said her mother, “here is your place by me as usual. Now, have a good tea, my darling, for we have much to talk of afterwards. I want all of you children to be present too; you must all hear my good news.”
“Good news, mother. That’s cheering,” said Leslie. “I have had such a cross day.”
“Cross—what do you mean?” said Kitty. “Do tell us, Leslie, what can have happened. Didn’t you get on with your pupils?”
“No, they were contrary; they would play and would not learn. I didn’t seem to have any control over them. Mother, dear, I am sick of teaching!”
“What rot!” cried Llewellyn. “One must go on with a thing whether one is sick or not.”
“Oh, I know, Lew, dear old boy, and I really don’t mean to grumble; only I felt cross and I am owning to it. I don’t feel cross now,” added the girl.
She helped herself to brown bread and butter. Kitty put a quantity of honey on her plate. Tea came to an end presently, and then the children in orderly file began to remove the tea-things.
In less than a quarter of an hour the little parlor—they always sat in the parlor in the evenings—was looking as snug and comfortable as a room could look. The lamp, beautifully trimmed and burning clearly, stood on the center table, the red curtains were drawn round the windows; a fire, blazing merrily, gave a final touch of cheerfulness to the pleasant room.
“Now, then, mother, get into your own special chair and tell us the news,” said Leslie.—“Llewellyn, you are not going away, are you?”
“No,” said Llewellyn.
“But before you begin, mother, do wait for us,” cried Mabel. “Kitty and I must go upstairs to turn down the beds, and then I must see Elfreda in order to get her to put the fish in soak for to-morrow’s breakfast. She does forget things so dreadfully.”
“Yes, and I have got to wash the tea-things; it’s my turn, I’m sorry to say,” remarked Hester, a somewhat heavy-looking girl, the least attractive of the family.
“Well, dears, I will wait for you three for exactly twenty minutes,” said Mrs. Gilroy. “Be as quick as possible; bustle away, get the house into perfect order, and then you shall come down to hear my good news.”
The children ran off.
When the door closed behind them Leslie looked at her mother.
“Must you go out again to-night, mother?” she asked.
“No, my darling, not to-night. To-morrow I shall not be home until very late. I have to attend two big functions, and must take my copy afterwards to the Grapho and the Daily Post.”
Llewellyn fidgeted; he stood up and then sat down again. He looked at his mother as if about to speak, and then restrained himself.
“What’s the matter, Lew? What are you worrying about?” said his sister.
“It’s only the thought of mother doing this beastly grind night after night,” he said. “It drives me half-wild sometimes.”
“My dear boy, I enjoy it,” said the mother; “and you shall take my place all in good time. There is an excitement about the life which exactly suits me. I could never be a drone even if I wished it, Lew—not even to please you, dear old fellow.”
The mother bent forward as she spoke and gave the boy one of her rare caresses, just a touch on his white forehead. He sat down near her. Another boy would have held out his hand for his mother to clasp, but Llewellyn’s long hands hung between his knees. He was bending over the fire, looking into the blaze. The daydreams which he had so often seen in those flames were receding farther and farther away. His face was pale, and the expression of his gray eyes heavy.
But Mrs. Gilroy, too much interested in Leslie at present to notice her son’s depression, continued to talk cheerfully. By and by she would see it all and speak of it, but not just now.
Quite within the appointed time the three girls returned. They took up their work, for never for a moment in this family was idleness allowed, and sat down near the lamp.
“Now then, we are ready,” said Hester; “but I do wish, before mother begins, that you would show me, Kitty, how you turn this heel. I know I am doing it wrong.”
“I should think you are, you old goose,” said Kitty. “Well, I can’t show you at present. Just take the needles out and unravel a few rows, then put the needles in again, and I’ll be ready to give you a lesson before bedtime. But, remember, I am going to charge for it. It’s a farthing a lesson, and the money to go to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Is not that a good idea, mother?” continued Kitty, looking up.
But Mrs. Gilroy was not listening. She had something important to say, and the mere idle chatter of this happy family passed over her ears unnoticed.
“Leslie,” she said laying her hand on her eldest girl’s arm, “my news has to do with you; but, as we have no secrets in our family, I will tell it before the rest of the children.”
Leslie looked eager and excited. Even Llewellyn dropped his despondent air and stood up, big and manly, five feet ten, on the hearthrug.
His mother glanced at him, noticed, without really noticing it, the marked look of power on his intellectual face, and then turned to her favorite child.
“I was in my usual place at the office of the Grapho to-day,” she began. “I was busily engaged preparing copy for to-morrow’s issue when a gentleman, an old friend of your father’s, a certain Mr. Parker, came in.”
“Mr. Parker! A friend of father’s! I never heard of him before,” said Leslie.
“He has been in Australia for the last twelve years, but has just returned home. He sent in his card and begged to see me. As soon as ever I saw him I remembered that your dear father had constantly spoken of him. Well, he wishes to do something for—for the sake of his old friend.”
Mrs. Gilroy’s voice faltered.
“He is quite a gentleman,” she continued, “though a little rough; but a capital good fellow at bottom. He spoke to me most frankly, and finally ended by making me an offer. The offer has to do with you, Leslie.”
“With me?” said Leslie.
“Yes, darling. He asked me all about our means. He was not at all prying; he was good and kind and oh! so generous at heart. I hated to tell him, and yet I felt obliged to. He was shocked; he thought your father would have left us better off.”
“He had no right to ask about our father’s means,” grumbled Llewellyn. “No one could have worked harder than our father did.”
“No one, truly,” echoed Leslie.
“And no one ever led a more upright, exemplary, splendid life,” said the widow. Her voice trembled; she paused for a moment.
Kitty and Mabel laid down their needlework.
“But, all the same,” continued the mother, “you must not blame Mr. Parker. He and your father had not met for many years, and in Australia they lead a different life. When a man is lucky there he is very lucky; and Mr. Parker has been one of the lucky ones. He took shares in some gold-mines, and explained to me that he is now a man of great wealth.”
“He must have interrupted your work a good bit,” began Llewellyn, then he checked himself. His mother glanced at him, took no notice of his speech, and continued with her story.
“The result of our interview is this,” she said, looking round at her children and laying her hand on Leslie’s arm. “Leslie is to have a chance, a right good chance in life.”
“Mother, what do you mean?” said Leslie. She opened her pretty eyes wide, and the color rushed into her face.
“Mr. Parker is a man of peculiar views,” said the mother. “He does not want to help boys, he says; they must stand or fall on their own merits. But for girls he has a peculiar feeling, an unbounded pity. The fact is, poor fellow, he had a wife of his own, and a daughter, and if the daughter were alive she would be your age, Leslie. I have not the slightest doubt that accounts for his prejudice in favor of girls. Now, my darling, he has offered to pay all your expenses either at Newnham or at that other great college, St. Wode’s, Wingfield. He wants you to give up your present employment immediately, and to go to either of these places at the beginning of term. You are to have every advantage that is possible. When you have completed your university education he will take further steps to insure your commanding an excellent living. The money is to be paid direct to me as required, and he has now given me a check for fifty pounds to buy the necessary outfit which you will require for your new life. I have taken the check and have accepted the offer. That is my news. It is a great chance for you, Leslie; it is a great chance. You go away from us, I know, my darling, and I shall miss you terribly; but it is a great chance.”
“And you have really accepted it, mother?”
“I have. I could not allow you to throw it away. Mr. Parker is such an old friend of your father’s that I am willing to put myself under this supreme obligation. He has even hinted that by and by he will do great things for Kitty and for Mabel.”
“And what about poor Hester?” said that individual, dropping her stocking and looking with piteous eyes at her mother.
“You are to be my home-bird, darling.” Then Hester rose and knelt by her mother, and put her strong young arms round her waist and kissed her.
“Yes; I for one would never leave you, mammy; and I don’t care a pin about being learned. I want just to be useful, although I am afraid I am a bit of a failure all round. There always is a failure in every family, isn’t there, mother; so it’s just as well that I should be the one.”
“We mean to have no failures in this family,” said Mrs. Gilroy. “Now, then, you young ones, it is time for bed; off you go at once. I have much to say to Leslie and to Llewellyn by themselves.”
When the younger girls had rather unwillingly left the room, Leslie took a seat near her mother. Llewellyn, going to a bookcase at the further end of the room, began to fumble with some books.
“Come here, Lew,” called out his sister; “we want you to talk to us and give us your advice; you are always so wise. Come, what are you doing at the other end of the room? Are you not delighted? Are not you as glad as I am?”
Llewellyn responded to Leslie’s invitation unwillingly. His mother looked up at him.
“What is the matter?” she asked.
“Nothing, mother. I am, on the whole, heartily pleased.”
His reply came slowly, and as though he had weighed each word.
“But I don’t at all know that I ought to accept, even though mother is so good as to give me leave,” said Leslie.
“That’s all rot, you know, Leslie,” said her brother roughly. “Mother has accepted; the thing is done. It is a chance which may never come in your way again.”
“But I don’t want it,” she cried, touched to her very heart’s core by something in his voice. “If it were only your chance, how happy I should be! Oh, Lew, with your tastes, with your wishes, what could you not achieve? You know it has been the passion of your heart since you were a little boy to go to one of the universities, and now—— Mother, dear, it is surely not too late; you could speak to Mr. Parker. You could explain to him that Llewellyn is the one in the family with genius; that Llewellyn will do him credit if he sends him to Oxford or Cambridge. Oh, leave me out! I can do without the university training. But, Lew—it would be the making of Lew! I suppose I am fairly well educated. I have passed right through the high school from the beginning, and no girl who does that can be said to be ignorant. This chance ought to be Llewellyn’s. Mother, it would be possible, surely, for you to put it to Mr. Parker in the right light?”
“No, Leslie; he wishes you to go,” said the mother quietly. “I have no choice in the matter. I have accepted for you. Look upon it, my darling, as a settled thing, and do not disturb, with the thought of any indecision, the great joy which ought to be yours.”
“There is a ring at the hall door,” cried Leslie. “I wonder who it can be?”
Mrs. Gilroy started.
“I quite forgot,” she said, coloring slightly. “Mr. Parker asked if he might come round and be introduced to you all. Doubtless that is his ring. Llewellyn, dear, will you go and open the hall door?”
Llewellyn strode across the room.
“I feel quite overcome,” said Leslie to her mother. “I never heard of Mr. Parker until half an hour ago, and now he is an immense factor in my life.”
Her words were interrupted, the door of the little parlor was thrown open, and Mr. Parker, accompanied by Llewellyn, entered.
“Here I am, here I am, as I promised!” called out the former, rubbing his hands as he spoke, and pushing up his red hair from his almost as red forehead. “Here I am, and right glad to see you again, Mrs. Gilroy. And so these are some of the youngsters? What’s your name, young sir?”
“Llewellyn,” replied the boy.
“And how old may you be?”
“Sixteen,” replied Llewellyn.
“’Pon my word, you’re a well-grown chap. We don’t have ’em better in the Bush, notwithstanding all the fine development that hard work gives. But you have fine shoulders—eh, and good stout legs. Fine young chap, Mrs. Gilroy; I congratulate you, ma’am, in possessing him. And so this is the young lady. How do you do, my dear? I am proud to make your acquaintance.”
Mr. Parker’s voice had been rough enough while he was addressing Llewellyn; but when he glanced at Leslie, who, tall, straight, and beautiful, stood before him, a spasm crossed his face and his voice faltered. It sank to a husky whisper; there was emotion in his tone.
“How do you do, my dear?” he said again; and he held out a great rough hand for the girl to shake.
She let her little hand lie in his for half a moment, and then withdrew it. She then went and stood by the fireplace.
“Sit down, please, Mr. Parker,” said Mrs. Gilroy, “Leslie, I think our friend would like a glass of wine; will you get it?”
“No wine for me, thank you, ma’am; no wine for me. I have dined, and admirably. Steak and stout, and boiled apple pudding; that’s fare after my own heart. Simple, ma’am, you can see—simple as my own tastes. Well, I am glad to see you, Mrs. Gilroy, at home; and a nice, snug little parlor you have. No show or pretension, or anything of that kind; just the sort of room I’d expect Gilroy’s widow to have; and,” added the man, glancing at the boy and girl, “just the sort of children too.”
The two children, thus alluded to, could not help sighing. Llewellyn wished himself fifty miles away. Leslie felt uncomfortable, and did not dare to meet her mother’s eyes.
Meanwhile Mr. Parker glanced around him. The ceiling of the little room was low, and the furniture, although exquisitely clean and orderly, was shabby. He sank back in the armchair which Mrs. Gilroy had invited him to take possession of, and proceeded to speak slowly and thoughtfully.
“This all reminds me of poor Gilroy,” he said; “and yet I expected him, with his talents, to live in a palace by this time. Instead of that, he has his six foot of earth—his six foot of earth, ma’am—just what we all will come to some day; and you are left a widow, and with the care of that big boy on your shoulders.”
“I won’t be on mother’s shoulders any longer,” grumbled Llewellyn.
“Ha! ha! young sir, don’t you be impatient; let me say my say out. This young lady now, she’s my charge for the future. Yes, ma’am, she’s my charge. My dear Miss Leslie, you’ll be a sort of adopted daughter to me. Now, sit down near me, and tell me what your inclinations are. I think your mother would send you to one of those new-fangled women’s colleges if you liked it; but if your inclinations are not set that way, why, I will set you up in business. I’ll give you capital, and you may do well—any line you like; you have only to name it. But your mother suggests that I should make an educated woman of you.”
“To a certain extent Leslie is that already,” interrupted the mother. She saw that the girl found it difficult to reply, that her lips were trembling, and her eyes shining through tears.
“My dear child has the best education I could give her,” continued Mrs. Gilroy. “Please, Llewellyn, take a chair.”
The boy flung himself down on the nearest seat.
“Mr. Parker, I have just been telling my children of your great kindness,” continued Mrs. Gilroy. “Leslie is, of course, delighted. There is nothing in the world she would like better than to go through one of the universities. She wishes, by and by, to earn her bread as a teacher; and, if she does that, it is essential that she should have the best education that can be procured.”
“Well, ma’am, if that’s your whim, it’s mine also,” said Mr. Parker. “I am only gratified to be able to please you in any way. This is a debt I owe, ma’am; so there’s no obligation on your part, nor on yours either, Miss Leslie.”
“A debt you owe?” said Mrs. Gilroy, in some astonishment.
“Well, you see, it was this way,” said Parker. “Gilroy and I were lads together in the same school. I don’t mean to say that we were exactly in the same set, for Gilroy belonged to gentlefolks, whereas I—well, my father kept a grocer’s shop. I always had a wonderful admiration for Gilroy; for, though he was an aristocrat, as they call them, he had no high and mighty haw-haw ideas, and he was good to me, and wouldn’t let the other fellows trample on me—not he, not he. And one day I got out of my depth before I could swim quite well, and he pulled me to shore. He made nothing of it; but, as a matter of fact, he saved my life. So, after that, there was nothing I wouldn’t do for him; and when we both left school, and Gilroy was going to one of your fine universities and I was off to the colonies, we had a supper together, and at the end of the supper we made a bargain one with the other. Gilroy said to me, ‘Parker, nobody knows what the chances of life are. It is possible that you may come back some day a rich man; if so, don’t forget that we were chums, that we were lads together, and if you can do a kindness to me or mine, do it. I am an unmarried man, and so are you. We are both young fellows on the threshold of life; but if ever I should have a wife and children, and I myself should be beneath the sod, you will look after them for me, Parker. It shall be a bargain between us, and I will do the same for your wife and children should the position be reversed.’
“Those were his words, ma’am,” said Mr. Parker, standing up as he spoke, “and I never forgot them—never. They followed me all through the years; and when I heard of his death I felt there was nothing in the world for it but to wind up my affairs, and to hurry back as fast as possible. There were Gilroy’s bonds that he had laid upon me, and I had to see to it that I obeyed the last words he ever said to me. Night after night I’d see him standing by my bedside; the light in his eyes seemed to shine into mine, and I felt again the way he gripped my hand. Well, ma’am, it has pleased the Almighty to take my wife and child away from me, and I am here at your service, and with the orders of your dead husband to do what I can for you and yours. My dear,” added Parker, suddenly turning and looking at Leslie, “you have a look of your father, the best fellow that ever breathed. You must let me, to a certain extent, be a father to you. My own wife is dead, and my—my girl, too. Aye, the girl was bonny. I’ll show you her picture some day, Miss Leslie.”
Leslie did not reply; but the tears which had been coming to her eyes now rolled down her cheeks. Mr. Parker noticed her emotion and was not ill pleased with it.
“You go to college if you wish it, young lady,” he said, “and I hold the purse-strings. When you want money you just write to me, and don’t bother that good mother of yours overmuch. So that affair is settled. Now, to turn to the others. This boy, for instance; he is Gilroy’s boy and worthy of his father. What do you mean to do, sir? Do you want a university life, too?”
“Oh, if you would only give it to him!” said Leslie. “Mother says you are rich, and if it is really as you say, and father laid his bond upon you, it does not seem too hard. Oh, if you would only do it!”
Her whole face lit up, her eyes shone, and she laid her hand on Mr. Parker’s arm.
“I’d do anything in the world for you, my dear; so if it is your wish, you have only to say the word. The boy looks intelligent, too. In Australia we would give a boy like that a bit of the bush to clear out, and a house to build, and we would teach him the rough essentials of life, and leave out the polishings; but Australia is Australia, and England is England; and as it seems to be all the development of the brain here——”
“And the body, too,” said Mrs. Gilroy. “You cannot say that we do not develop the bodies of our lads as long as we have football and cricket.”
“We have those, too, in Australia, and we manage to beat you once in a while,” said Parker, with a slight twinkle in his eyes. “But what does the lad want himself—that is the question?”
“Llewellyn wants to go either to Oxford or Cambridge,” said Leslie. “It has been the dream of his life.”
“Yes, it has been the dream of his life,” replied the mother.
She glanced at Llewellyn, whose face was now white as death.
“It is the dream of my life no longer,” he said. His voice was husky, not to say rough.
“Then, what is it you want, my boy?”
Parker went up and clapped his hand heavily on the boy’s shoulder.
“Nothing from you, sir,” was Llewellyn’s answer. “Oh, I am obliged, of course, or I try to be obliged; but I don’t want anything. What is more, sir, I wouldn’t take anything.”
“Llewellyn!” said his mother.
“I don’t wish to take anything from Mr. Parker, mother. I was about to tell you when we were alone; but I will tell you now, instead. I accepted a situation to-day at Lee & Forrest’s.”
“Lee & Forrest’s!” said the mother. “You accepted a situation at that big draper’s round the corner? Llewellyn, you must be mad!”
“I am not. I have been thinking about it for some time; this is not as sudden as it looks to you. You know young Forrest has been my friend at school, and there is a vacancy in the shop. They want a boy to train for the business, and Mr. Forrest is so pleased with me for applying that he is going to start me at once. I saw him to-day, and I accepted it, mother, subject to your leave, which, of course, you will give. Mr. Forrest said it would do him a lot of good to have a lad like me about the place; and young Forrest himself goes to one of the universities. It is a good thing for me, mother, and I have made up my mind.”
There was a dead silence in the room. Mrs. Gilroy’s face looked white; all the pleasure had left it. She glanced at Parker, whose deep-set eyes twinkled half with fun and half with sympathy. He patted Llewellyn again on the shoulder.
“The truth now,” he said; “you are too proud to take help from me?”
“I am,” said Llewellyn.
“That’s a right spirit; but I am going to tempt you. I will give you two hundred a year if you wish to go to Oxford.”
“No, thank you,” answered the boy. He shook the kindly hand off and stepped back a foot.
“But why, my lad?”
“Oh, Llewellyn, why?” said the mother.
“Oh, Llewellyn, are you mad?” cried Leslie.
“I will tell you why, if you all want to know,” said Llewellyn. “I don’t choose to be beholden to anybody, not even to Mr. Parker, who was my father’s friend. I may some day go to the university; but I don’t think there is much chance of it. Sir, I will tell you another reason: I want to help my mother; she needs help at once. She could take it from me when she could not take it from a stranger. If I went to Oxford I could not earn any money for three or four years; now I start at once with a pound a week. I can live at home, too, and half the money will go straight towards the house. In a year’s time my screw is to be raised. It is all settled, sir. I am obliged to you all the same, but I can’t take your help.”
As Llewellyn finished he turned to leave the room.
“One moment, please,” interrupted Parker. “I respect you, boy. Shake hands. If I had had a son of my own I could only wish that he had been of similar metal. You’ll do, young sir—you’ll do.”
Late that evening there came a knock at Llewellyn’s door. He called out, “Come in!” and his sister Leslie entered. She shut the door softly behind her.
“Mother is asleep,” she said; “and I think she has been crying—she sighs so heavily in her sleep; it is not like her. I would not wake her for the world; but I knew you would be up, Lew, and I felt that I must have a talk with you.”
“All right—that is, if you really wish it,” said Llewellyn, slightly stretching himself, and a frown coming between his brows. He had been bending over a volume of Plato’s “Republic,” and some sheets of manuscript, scribbled over as if in frantic haste, were scattered about the table. When Leslie approached he pushed the manuscript helter-skelter into a waste-paper basket and shut up the book.
“Why did you do that?” said Leslie; “why do you hide your real thoughts from me, Lew? Don’t you want me to know? We have always been more than ordinary brother and sister to each other. What is the matter with you?”
Still Llewellyn did not reply. He stood up and looked at his sister with as expressionless a face as he could possibly manage to assume.
“It is no use,” said Leslie. She went up to him now, raised herself on tiptoe, and kissed him on his cheek. “You have done it, and it is noble of you, it is splendid of you; but why—why?”
“How can you ask me why?” he answered. “Can’t you guess?”
“I guess partly,” replied the girl; “you want to help mother. But surely you could help her much more effectually in the long run by doing what Mr. Parker wishes. It is such a chance, and it was put in your way, Lew; you didn’t go out of your way to seek it. Perhaps God meant you to accept it.”
“No, don’t,” cried Llewellyn—“don’t say that.” A spasm of pain flitted across the boy’s face, then vanished.
“I want to help mother, and I will,” he said stoutly. “I don’t intend her to do all the toiling and money-making any longer. I am almost a man, Leslie; I shall be seventeen my next birthday. Oh, in one sense it is young! but it is not young with me, for I think I am older than my years. I won’t see her grinding without putting my own shoulder to the wheel. It’s just intolerable!”
“I wish you would listen to me, Llewellyn,” said Leslie; “it is not too late yet. The chance has been offered to you and the chance has been offered to me. It seems to me, on thinking things over, that only one of us can take it, for mother can’t do without both of us.”
“That’s just what I said,” interrupted Llewellyn; “you are to go and I am to stay. It is all arranged. Don’t, like a dear girl, worry over the thing any longer. It’s done, and that’s an end of it.”
“But you must let me speak,” said Leslie. “I can never go to St. Wode’s unless I make a clean breast of all that is in my mind. If one of us is to grind for the present, ought not I to be the one? I am older than you, I have had a more thorough education, I can easily get a position as junior teacher in Miss Harkaway’s school. There is a vacancy, and she has half promised it to me. That will bring me in thirty pounds a year and my food, and, after a bit, I might do even better. Thus I should be altogether off mother’s hands, and could even help her a trifle. Then, Lew, you will be really helping her at Oxford. As you are acquiring learning, and as those magnificent brains of yours are being cultivated to their full worth, you will be preparing for a learned profession, or a professorship, or something of that kind. Surely, surely, that would be a more substantial help to the sweetest mother in the world than your earning a pound a week now at Lee & Forrest’s.”
“There is something in what you say, Leslie; but there is not enough in it,” said Llewellyn quietly. “Believe me, I have thought of all this from every point of view. In the first place, professorships do not mean wealth, and, for mother’s sake, I mean to be a wealthy man some day. You must go into trade to be wealthy now. Oh, it is not that I care for money, not a bit! But I want to save the mother, to keep her from toiling when she is old, to help the younger children. I can’t stand Parker doing all the help, Leslie; the mere thought drives me half wild. Then I shall not always work at a pound a week. In a couple of years I may be earning a salary of two hundred a year, for I don’t mind telling you that young Forrest has taken no end of a fancy to me, and he and I had a long talk to-day. He took me up to see his father, and his father would do anything for a boy Jim liked. Jim goes to Oxford in the autumn. He hates the shop, and he won’t go into business, for he can’t stand it, and so his father has to start him in a profession. But he hinted very broadly—and so did the old man, too, for that matter—that if I could take his place it would put matters a bit right and smooth down the pride of old Forrest; so I shall have my chance, Leslie—a small partnership by and by; and I mean to take it, little girl, so you can go to Wingfield with a heart and a half, and win the academic honors of the family. It is a splendid chance for you, Leslie, and I’m not the fellow to stand in your way.”
“But I just wish you would!” she cried.
Llewellyn put one of his arms round her and drew her close to him.
“One can take an interest in anything one sets one’s mind to,” he continued. “I shall begin double entry and bookkeeping and all that sort of thing to-morrow, and the classics may go to Hong Kong for the present. Poor old Plato! I loved him, and I had dreams about him; but he and I must be strangers for the present. You think me silly now, dear, but you won’t when I have succeeded. By the time I have a great big shop of my own you will think me the wise one of the family. Leslie, my dear, what is wrong?”
For Leslie had squeezed his arm so tightly that the lad winced.
“I can’t bear to think of you with a shop,” she cried, “with that brain and those eyes. And oh, Lew! don’t you remember how you translated Thucydides for us? And—oh, Lew, it can’t be borne.”
“It must be borne,” he replied stoutly. “I can have lessons in the classics if I have time enough presently. Oh, a university man is not the only man in the world, Leslie. But now we will talk no more of this. Once for all, my mind is made up.”
“What would our father have said,” she cried; “our father, who was a great scholar?”
“If he were to come back, and if he could speak to me, I am quite certain he would say that I was more worthy to be his son if I helped the mother quickly than if I did anything else,” replied the boy.
“Perhaps you are right,” said Leslie, in a thoughtful voice.
Llewellyn rubbed his hand over his eyes.
“I don’t pretend, all the same, that it’s not been no end of a tussle,” he said; “but now my mind is made up.”
“Quite?”
“Yes, quite.”
“Have you given an answer yet to Mr. Forrest?”
“Practically I have; but the mother must come round with me to see him to-morrow. The dear little mother won’t much like it; but she must do it. You don’t know how he respects her, Leslie.”
“I should think so,” said Leslie; “that goes without saying. She is quite the dearest, bravest little mother in the wide world.”
“Well, dry your tears, old girl; I’ll look after her while you are away. Be cheerful, Leslie, and get all the good you can out of this magnificent thing, for I don’t pretend that it’s not a great bit of fortune for you. It is quite possible and right for you to take help from Mr. Parker; but I could not do it. It’s not in me to take favors from anyone. Such a thing would lower me in my own eyes. Oh, it does not lower you, Leslie; but it would me, for I am differently made. We must each walk according to our own lights. And now go to bed, old girl, for I am half dead with sleep.”
“Kiss me, first,” she said. “Llewellyn, I think you are the bravest boy in all the world.”
“You would not say so if you had seen me two hours back. I was so miserable I felt fit to kill myself; but there,” he added, clenching one of his strong hands, “I did not mean to let it out to you, and I am quite right now and I don’t feel a bit miserable.”
Leslie left the room, and Llewellyn was alone.
“But, all the same, it’s a hard tug,” he muttered as he glanced round him. He dropped into a chair and buried his face in his hands. He thought of the dreams which must never be realized, of the school-fellows who would more or less despise him, of the different position he must occupy in future.
“Good-by literature,” he said to himself; “good-by the laurels which would have been so sweet to gather. Good-by dreams.”
But, by and by, as Llewellyn thought, he raised his face, and, gazing straight before him, he saw another vision, and that vision comforted and strengthened him a good bit. It was that of a home, with a woman in it who wore the sweetest face in the world, and who was not tired with overwork, who, in fact, need not work at all. He saw himself as the one who was keeping that home. With his toil, with the energy of his strong young arms, with the youth and talents which God had given him, he was supporting his mother and his younger brothers and sisters; and they all looked up to him and loved him, and his heart was happy. The thought of the picture made his heart happy even now.
He smiled, dropped on his knees, muttered a hasty prayer, and, tumbling into bed, was soon fast asleep.
Leslie in her own room also slept, and bright dreams came to her. The thought of the future was delightful, and she looked upon it as Llewellyn’s gift.
“For if Llewellyn had been selfish and had accepted Mr. Parker’s offer, I could not have gone,” thought the girl. “I could not have left mother if Llewellyn were not with her; but, as it is, and as he is sacrificing himself, oh! I will work just double time in order to make it up to him. For some day he must have time to pursue his beloved classics, and his literature, and all those things which he cares for. No girl who has a noble brother like Llewellyn ought to shrink at anything. I believe I am the happiest, and I know I am the proudest, girl in the world.”