Title: Five thousand pounds
Author: Giberne, Agnes
Language: English
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[Illustration: IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY FATHER CAME BACK.]



                     FIVE THOUSAND POUNDS.


                             BY
                       AGNES GIBERNE,

                         AUTHOR OF

"ENID'S SILVER BOND;" "ST. AUSTIN'S LODGE;" "OLD UMBRELLAS;"
                  "BERYL AND PEARL;" ETC.



                         NEW EDITION



                           London
              JAMES NISBET & CO., LIMITED
                     21 BERNERS STREET



            Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
                  At the Ballantyne Press



CONTENTS.

CHAP.

    I. MY COTTAGE HOME

   II. NEWS

  III. THE MONEY

   IV. CONGRATULATIONS

    V. FIRST PURCHASES

   VI. AN ALARM

  VII. TO GO OR TO STAY

 VIII. THE NEW HOUSE

   IX. NOTHING TO DO

    X. MR. SIMMONS

   XI. GOING HOME

  XII. AT LAST

 XIII. A DAMP DWELLING

  XIV. CHRISTMAS

   XV. TROUBLE

  XVI. SCENES

 XVII. THE END



FIVE THOUSAND POUNDS.

CHAPTER I.

MY COTTAGE HOME.

UP to the age of fourteen I think I spent as happy a life as any child
in any cottage home in England. There is many a cottage which is no
"home" at all, in the true sense of the word, notwithstanding those
pretty words of poetry about—

     "The cottage homes of England,
        By thousands in her plains;"

but ours was one.

It stood on a bit of country road, with three or four other cottages,
close outside a biggish town. We had a large pond in front, and lots
of trees beyond and on both sides of the pond; and the shadows of the
trees used to look very pretty on a summer evening, when the light from
the sun came creeping through them with a red glow like firelight. The
water would catch the glow, till it was all one sheet of brightness,
and the trees seemed bending down to look at their own likenesses
below, for every branch and twig and leaf might be seen there, pictured.

Sometimes a breeze would ruffle the surface, and then there were little
wavelets, with red on one side and grey on the other, and the pictured
branches and leaves had a snaky sort of movement in and out of one
another. And if a duck swam across, leaving its little track, that made
another break in the smooth picture.

I used to stand and watch these things, and wonder at the ripples and
the brightness. Sometimes I asked father the "why" of this or that, for
I was an inquisitive child, but he always said, "Don't know, my girl,"
and went off to his pipe; so it was not of much use to ask him. If I
put the same questions to mother, she commonly said, "How can I tell?
Don't bother!" and that shut me up.

And if I went to grannie, she would say, "Because God made it so,
Phœbe." This was all right and true, but I would have liked to
understand a little more about the beautiful things which God has made.
I used to wonder then, and I often wonder now, how it is that people
care so little to look into such matters.

Well, but I must go on about my home, the only home I ever knew in
childish years.

It was a pretty cottage. Clematis grew over one side, and in front
there was a rose-tree, which used to flower all the summer through and
on almost into the winter. The roses were small and white, but how they
did cluster! People often stopped to remark on them. We had a nice
piece of flower-garden in front, stuffed full of sweet-williams and
pinks, and such plain old-fashioned plants: none the less pretty for
being old-fashioned, however. At the back there was a tiny strip of
kitchen-garden too. The front door had a porch, and honeysuckle grew
thickly all over it, with long trailing pieces, which had to be lifted
and put aside when we went out or in.

Grannie had lived in this cottage all through her married life, and
when her husband died she lived on there still, with her only boy,—my
father,—working for him, and making him work for her.

Father's work was in the building firm of Johnstone & Co. We thought
Mr. Johnstone a very grand person in our little town, because he was so
rich, and wore such a thick gold watch-chain, and had such a big red
stone in the ring on his little finger. But I dare say he would not
have been thought so much of elsewhere. He was not a gentleman, and he
very seldom spoke a kind word to any of his men, as I am sure he would
have done if he had been a true gentleman.

Father was not a skilled workman, but he had good wages nevertheless,
for he was steady and trustworthy.

He was always kind to us children. I never knew him anything else in
those days. Sometimes he would speak up sharp in a passing way, but he
never knocked us about or stormed at us, as I have seen men do with
their children.

He was not a religious sort of man. He went to Church most Sundays,
in the afternoon, to please grannie, and sat and nodded through the
sermon. He would have done a good deal to please her, though he
wouldn't do one thing which she wanted, and that was to leave his bed
early enough for the morning Service—no, not even for her sake.

No, father was not religious. If he had been—not merely religious
outwardly, but really serving God in his heart—I think our life after
might have been different from what it was. It always seems to me,
looking back, that poor father was like a fine ship at sea, without any
rudder. For a while it may float along quietly enough, on a calm sea
and with a fair wind. But let the wind change and grow strong, and it
is carried helplessly away and cast upon the rocks. If he had had the
rudder, yes, and the Pilot on board, the breeze would have been only
for his good. But he had not.

I have many a time had this thought about poor father. He was such a
kind man in those days, and so steady. He liked his pipe and his glass
of beer, it is true, but he didn't go to excess with either, and he
loved his home and seldom went to the public. He brought his wages
straight home to grannie always; for it was grannie who managed things,
not mother. They were very unlike each other. Grannie liked work, and
mother couldn't abide it. Grannie could not be happy without everything
neat and nice about her, and mother did not care how anything was.
Grannie had always managed everything before father married, and she
kept it on after he married. Mother did not mind. She liked to be saved
trouble.

Mother was a pretty little woman, with blue eyes and a nice smile.
But she was always untidy. Even grannie could not cure her of her
untidiness. I don't know what the house would have been like, except
for grannie: but that made all the difference. She never let a speck of
dust lie anywhere, and she was a beautiful cook.

Grannie set herself early to train me into her ways, and I think I took
after her naturally. "You know, Phœbe," she used to say sometimes, "if
anything happens to me, it will all come upon you. Somehow, your mother
doesn't seem to have the knack; and if somebody else beside her didn't
keep things straight, there would be a terrible muddle. Maybe she would
not mind, but your father would, and it's a terrible thing to live in a
muddle. So see you do your best to learn."

I did do my best, and I think she found me an apt scholar. By fourteen
years old I could turn-out tidy little dinners without any difficulty,
and I was a capital hand at cleaning up; and as for sewing and darning,
I don't really think there was another girl in the place who could have
surpassed me.

I was a good deal more grannie's child than mother's. Mother cared most
for Asaph. There were only two of us, and Asaph was two years younger
than me. He was very like mother in looks and ways, little and pretty,
with blue eyes and curly hair, and a sort of easy soft way of doing
things. But he was not so easy as not to like having his own way, and
he didn't take it softly if anybody crossed him. He loved to lie in bed
too, and he hated lessons and work. And mother indulged him right and
left. Grannie seldom meddled about Asaph, for it almost always raised a
storm if she did.

Grannie was getting on in years, and her hair was white, but she still
looked hearty and strong, and was very active and ready to help in many
ways. She was religious and no mistake. It was religiousness of the
right sort with her—not only going to Church and saying her prayers,
as with some people; and not only talking good, as with some other
people. She did go to Church of course, and I never knew a more regular
Church-goer than she; and she did say her prayers regularly too. And
I don't mean either that she could not talk if occasion served. We
can generally speak now and then of the things we love best. But her
religion didn't consist only in Church-going or in talk. She lived
altogether to God and for God, and I don't really think she ever took
a single step without considering first whether it was what God would
have her do.



CHAPTER II.

NEWS.

I REMEMBER so well one particular Sunday evening. It is not surprising
that I should remember that Sunday evening, for it came just before a
great event in our lives.

We had been to Church twice as usual, Grannie and I. Mother never
would go in the morning. She said she had too much to do—though really
it was not she who did the work. Father lay in bed late, and Asaph
followed his example. Grannie and I always got up particularly early on
Sunday morning, that we might have everything straight in time for the
Service. Grannie always gave father a good cold dinner on Sunday. She
had been a servant in a rich gentleman's family when she was young, and
she used to say that if the gentleman and his family always had cold
Sunday dinners, for the sake of saving Sunday work to their servants,
she didn't see why we shouldn't do the same, for our own sake. We were
not like the neighbours in this, and father sometimes grumbled a little
in a good-tempered way. But he had been brought up to it from boyhood,
and the dinners were always so nice that he could not say much. The
only things ever spoilt were the potatoes and greens, which mother used
to have in charge to cook, as they of course had to be hot. I fancy she
often went out for a gossip with the neighbours, and forgot them. If
mother would have gone to Church, grannie would have stayed at home, or
made me stay at home, to do what was needed. But grannie always said
she would not consent to have two kept away from God's House, where one
was enough. And grannie could be very firm, when once she had made up
her mind.

So we had been to Church in the morning, and then we had all had a nice
dinner of beautiful cold pie, good enough for the Lord Mayor's table,
and a sort of cold custardy pudding with jam and pastry round. It
looked grand, and father was very fond of it, but it did not cost much
money, though it did cost a deal of time and trouble in the making.
Grannie never grudged time or trouble, however.

In the afternoon we had been to Church again, and father and Asaph with
us. Father was a very respectable-looking man in his Sunday suit, and
Asaph was such a pretty boy. He looked more like ten than twelve years
old, though. Mother would not go with us, for she had toothache. She
was a good deal given to toothache, but I think it came oftenest on a
Sunday.

The sermon that afternoon was about Temptation. I often thought after,
how strange it was that Mr. Scott should have preached it just then.

"Lead us not into temptation" was the text. Mr. Scott spoke a great
deal about the meaning of the word Temptation. He said it had two
quite different meanings—one was, enticing to evil, and the other was,
testing or trying. He said that God never "tempted" any man in the
first sense—enticing to do wrong. But he said also that God very often
tempted us in the second sense—trying our faith, testing our strength,
putting a pull on the rope, as it were, to show how heavy a weight it
could bear.

Then Mr. Scott talked about different ways in which God "tempts"
people—sometimes by sending sorrow; sometimes by giving pain; sometimes
by putting them into difficult circumstances; sometimes, and Mr. Scott
made a good deal of this, by letting them have all they most like and
wish for. I think that part of the sermon struck me most. It seemed
so strange to think of happiness being temptation. But I saw grannie
nodding her head with a pleased look, so I was sure he must be right.

Mr. Scott was a good loving-hearted old man, and he was what is called
an able preacher. Everybody in the place loved him, for he was a friend
to everybody—so far, at least, as people would let him be.

I could not make out whether father was listening to the sermon. He
never did as a rule, but used to settle himself into his corner and
fall into a half-doze. Sometimes grannie would poke him gently to rouse
him, and he would give a great start and make believe to pay attention,
but it never lasted long.

This day, however, he really did listen. For in the evening, when we
had had our tea, and father and grannie and I were sitting outside
the door, as we often did of a summer evening, with the pond in front
glistening, and the ducks swimming to and fro, father said—

"I didn't hold with Mr. Scott this afternoon. If good times are a
temptation, they're a rare sort to most folks. I think it's trouble
that makes one go wrong. I shouldn't mind having a little more of the
other, for my part."

"Times aren't bad with us, Miles," said grannie.

"Maybe not, but I shouldn't mind 'em being better," said father. "I
shouldn't mind a bit more of holiday now and then—and to take things
easily and have less to do."

It was not at all astonishing that father should have made these
remarks just before what was coming, for he very often did make them. A
week seldom passed without his saying such things.

"I shouldn't wonder if a time of ease and idleness was one of the
sharpest temptations God ever sends," grannie said quietly.

Father said, "Now, mother!" in a protesting sort of way.

"I shouldn't," she said, quite firm, and looking him in the face.
"Satan has a deal better chance with idle folks than with busy ones,
Miles."

"Ah, so you've told me many a time," said father. "And maybe you're
right. I don't say but what you are. I'm not an idle sort of fellow
myself, by any manner of means. But I don't say I wouldn't like more
ease. And as for calling pleasure and riches and that sort, temptation,
I don't see it—I don't really see it."

"No," said grannie. "There's many a thing a man can't see, till God
gives him sight."

"And you think you've longer sight than me, mother?" says he.

She looked up, with a smile which I thought quite beautiful—looked up,
not at him, nor at the trees, but away and above and beyond, as it were.

"Yes," she said; "I've longer sight than you, my dear. I've sight to
see up and up into heaven itself, and you haven't. It makes a deal of
difference."

"Bless me, mother, don't talk like that," says father, in a sort of
hurry. "It sounds as if you was going to die this very night."

"And if I was, I'm ready," said she. "It wouldn't be grief to me to
hear the chariot wheels coming near."

But I was sitting close by, and I turned and said, "Grannie, please
don't want to go just yet."

"No," she said, "I'm willing to wait."

"Well, you go beyond common folks, somehow," father said. "There ain't
many that care to talk about dying as cool as you do."

"No," she said. "And I couldn't either, if death was to me what it is
to many a one, a plunge into the outer darkness, away from the smile of
God. That would be awful."

"Well, well, we needn't talk about it now," father said, fidgeting.
"You're the best woman that ever lived, though you don't think yourself
so. But all the world can't be like you."

And he got up, and hummed a tune, and plucked a bit of sweet-william,
and walked about; so grannie could not say any more.

The next morning broke like other mornings, and we began the day as
usual. Father went to his work, and Asaph to school, which he was
nearly done with. This was washing morning, so I was very busy. Mother
said her tooth ached still, and she did not seem to think she could
do anything. Pain always upset her, and she cried over it half the
morning, and went out in the garden and chatted with Mrs. Dickenson
most of the other half.

Mrs. Dickenson was our left-hand neighbour, a cleanly thrifty sort of
body, but a great talker. She never could resist a gossip, though she
worked hard between whiles. Grannie did not like her very much. She had
only one child.

In the middle of the day father came back. That was quite unexpected.
He always took his dinner with him, and ate it at the works. Grannie
used to put it up for him nicely in a piece of paper, with a clean red
handkerchief outside. Sometimes it was only bread and cheese, but more
often she managed for him to have a slice of cold meat too.

This Monday, instead of staying away as usual, he came home. Our
first thought was that he must be ill; but he was walking fast and
looking quite red in the face, so it did not seem like illness. Then
we fancied that perhaps he had got into trouble and been turned off;
but no, he looked too pleased. I had never seen father look so pleased
and delighted before. He came hurrying up to us, as we waited at the
cottage door, for mother had called us all together in a fright, to see
what was wrong, the moment she caught sight of father walking along the
road. He hurried up, as I say, and seized Asaph, and gave him a sort of
twirl round, like a man in such spirits that he scarce knew what to do
with himself. And then he said—

"Guess what's happened?"

"I know," mother said. "You are going to have higher wages."

Father chuckled, and said, "No."

"It's a half-holiday at the works," said grannie.

"No, it isn't. I got leave to run round for five minutes, that's all."

"Then what has happened?" cried mother, and we all chimed in. Grannie
was the quietest, and I think she looked a little anxious.

"You want to know, don't you?" says father, chucking Asaph under the
chin; "don't you?" and he chucked me too. "Well, I'll tell you. I'm to
have five thousand pounds!"

Grannie looked as if she fancied him gone mad. Mother shrieked and
clapped her hands, and Asaph copied her.

"Five thousand pounds!" father said again.

"Who's given it to you, my dear?" asked grannie.

"Nobody. It's left to me in a will. Old Andrew Morison is dead, and he
has been storing up his money for years, and he quarrelled with his
son just at last, and willed it all away to me. Think of that! Five
thousand pounds, Sue! Think of that! Five thousand pounds, mother!"

"It's the temptation," said grannie very low, and I heard her sigh.

"It's just lovely," cried mother. "Why, I can have a silk dress."

"Six, if you like," said father. "And Phœbe, too."

I don't know what I said. I felt all in a maze.

"Miles," said grannie, in a trembling voice, and she laid her hand on
his arm. "It's a solemn charge for you. Don't you think we ought just
to kneel down, and thank God, and ask Him to teach us how to spend it?
It'll do us no manner of good without His blessing alongside."

"So you can, mother," said he, all in a hurry, giving her a kiss. "So
you can. I'm due back at the works, and mustn't wait. We'll talk it
over in the evening, by-and-by. And Sue shall have her silk dress as
soon as ever she likes. It makes a man feel all dazed to think of! Five
thousand pounds!"

And he was gone. Mother ran away to tell the neighbours, and grannie
took me upstairs into the little room which she and I had together. She
didn't make but a short prayer, only it was one which I never could
forget.



CHAPTER III.

THE MONEY.

"Who told you about it, Miles?" asked grannie at tea-time.

Father had come back, and we all felt very much excited still, as was
only natural, I suppose. Grannie looked sad, I thought, but she was
the only one to seem so. I had had a restless feeling on me all day,
which made it difficult, to settle to work. I don't think I should have
settled to it at all, but for grannie's being so bent upon everything
going on just the same as usual. She would not abate one jot of
cleaning and washing and scouring for herself or for me. But mother
did nothing whatever the whole day, except stand at the door, and talk
to the neighbours. The news spread quickly, and numbers came to ask
what it meant. Some seemed really pleased for us, but they were few.
The greater number, as far as I could tell from scraps of talk which
I heard in going to and fro, were more inclined to be jealous, and to
wonder why such good fortune should have come to us and not to them.

And at tea-time grannie put the question,—"Who told you about it,
Miles?"

"Why, it was the lawyer who had the making of the will—a Mr. Carver. It
was him and young Mr. Johnstone," father said. "The lawyer came over
by train from Lanston this morning, and he told Mr. Johnstone first,
and then they sent for me and told me. Mr. Johnstone said I was a lucky
man, and he shook hands with me—first time he ever thought of doing
that."

"Young Mr. Johnstone isn't near so stuck-up as his father," mother said.

"He's more of a gentleman," added grannie; "that's why."

"There's room for him to be," said father. "Well, he told me I was a
lucky man, and Mr. Carver talked a deal. I was so dazed at the news, I
didn't half take in all he said. Something about saving and investing
and stocks,—I don't know what it was."

"I think you'd be wise, Miles, to ask him to say it again, and to take
his advice," said grannie. "He knows more of such things than we do."

"Oh, I'm not so sure," says father, thrusting his hands into his
pockets. "I'm not at all so sure of that, mother. He's a lawyer, and
he'd like to have a finger in the pie, I don't doubt. But I don't want
any of my five thousand pounds to stick to his fingers. He's too sleek
and smooth-spoken by half for me. I don't trust him."

"Then you'll ask Mr. Scott," said grannie.

"I'll think it over," says father. "No need to be in such a hurry. Time
enough to make up our minds."

"I'll tell you one thing that is on my mind," said grannie, speaking
slowly, and looking at us all round in turn. "What about the poor
fellow who was expecting five thousand pounds from his father, and who
hasn't got it?"

"Jem Morison! Ah, poor wretch, yes," says father in an indifferent sort
of way.

"He shouldn't have offended his father," said mother. "But I am glad he
did."

"It's sorrowful work for him," said grannie.

"Well, he took his choice," father said. "He married against his
father's will, and now his wife's sickly, and they've got twins, and
he is in bad health, and can't work. Oh, I dare say he's sorry enough.
Most people are when they've taken their own way and have to suffer
for it. 'Marry in haste and repent at leisure,' you know. But there's
another saying quite as true, and that is, 'It's an ill wind that blows
nobody any good.' If young Morison hadn't gone against his father, we
shouldn't have this fine windfall. I declare, mother, I don't think
you half take in how good it is. Five thousand pounds! Why it'll do
anything! Sue is going to be a lady now."

"Fifty thousand pounds wouldn't make a lady of one who wasn't so in
herself," said grannie quietly. "Wearing a silk dress is not being a
lady, Miles, and you know that as well as I do. I've no wish to see Sue
a lady, nor you a gentleman. All I want is to see you both living for
God in that station of life where He has put you."

"Well now, mother, you won't go for to say it isn't God who has given
us this five thousand pounds, I suppose," says father sharply.

"Yes," she said, "I know He has, and I thank Him for it. But it's
temptation, Miles."

Father laughed out loud.

"It's temptation," repeated grannie. "It may be very sore temptation,
Miles. I think I'd almost sooner have seen you with temptation of the
other sort,—with having too little, instead of too much—if God had
willed to send it. I'd have feared less for your being led astray by
it."

"Now, mother, you do take a very melancholical view of affairs, and
that I must say," protested father. "And what's more, I don't think
it's kind. Just because something good has come for once in our lives,
you must needs croak about it, and wish it was something bad instead."

"Grannie would like us all to sit down and cry," said mother.

She and father often called her "grannie" just as we children did.

"No, I don't want that, Sue," said grannie. "But I'd have you thankful
to God, my dear, and I'd have your eyes open to danger—that's all. And
there's one more word I must say, though I'm afraid you won't like it.
Seems to me, Miles,—"

Grannie made a stop. "Seems what?" asked father.

"Suppose we were in the place of that poor young Morison, and he was in
your place—how do you think you would feel?"

"How? Why, I should count myself an uncommon fool, to have thrown away
five thousand pounds for the sake of a pretty face," says father.

"I shouldn't wonder but you'd feel too you had a sort of right to the
money, and that the other man hadn't any right to it at all," grannie
said.

Father burst into another loud laugh, but it wasn't a happy or a merry
laugh.

"Oh, that's what you're driving at, is it?" said he. "No, no,
grannie—no nonsense of that sort for me. I'll keep the money fast when
I get it. As Morison has sown, he may reap. He's nothing to me, nor I
to him."

"He and you are cousins born," grannie said. "Your father's father and
the mother of the old man that's dead were brother and sister."

"So much the better for me," father answered. "If I hadn't come next
in blood-relationship, old Morison wouldn't have willed the money to
me. But it's little enough we owe to any of them in the past, you know,
mother. Why, dear me, the Morisons have counted themselves a deal too
grand for many a year to have to do with such as we."

"The more reason to be ready to show them kindness now," says grannie.

Father repeated the word "kindness" in a rough sort of way. "Why, you
don't really think," says he, "that any living man would be such a born
ass as to give up five thousand pounds of his own free will!"

"If he saw it right! Yes, there have been such things done," grannie
said, with a kindling in her eyes. "But I would be content if you would
give him half, Miles."

Father brought down his clenched fist on the table, with a bang which
made the cups and saucers rattle.

"I'll not do it," he said. "I'll not give him one half, nor one
quarter, nor one tenth—no, nor one shilling of the money. It's mine,
and I'll keep it. Why, bless me, the world would be upside down
altogether, if such notions as yours got followed out. You've a sort of
craze, grannie, with your religious ways, and that is how it is. But
you needn't hug this notion, nor speak of it to anybody. Morison is not
going to have one shilling of the money."



CHAPTER IV.

CONGRATULATIONS.

THE next few days were very stirring. People were always coming in and
out, to talk over our "piece of good fortune." Neighbours kept dropping
in to congratulate us, and to ask particulars, and to find something
more to gossip about. And mother liked nothing better than to talk with
everybody about what had happened, and to boast of all that she and
father meant to do with the five thousand pounds, as soon as ever it
came to us.

"Of course you won't stay any longer in this little cottage," one said.
I heard her, and I thought the words were said sneeringly. I didn't
like the person who said them—Mrs. Raikes, the wife of a tailor who
lived near. But mother took up the idea, and could talk of nothing else
for hours. Grannie said quietly—"If you go, you and Miles, I don't go
with you;" and she said no more.

I think we all expected the money to come in one or two days, and it
disappointed us to hear that we might have to wait a good while. Young
Mr. Johnstone looked in one morning, and he was very agreeable and
kind. Mother asked him how soon we should have the money, and he said
the lawyers were not bound to pay it in less than a year. "I dare say
you won't have to wait quite so long," he said, "but lawyers never
hurry themselves. And meantime, it isn't at all impossible that the
other party may dispute the will, which might cause further delays."

Mother pouted, and was very vexed to think of having to wait. She had
so set her heart on having a silk dress directly. But grannie seemed
rather pleased than otherwise to hear of delay, for she thought it
would give us all time to come to our senses.

Another day, to our great amazement, the Johnstones' carriage stopped
at our door. It was a very big heavy carriage, and the coachman and
footman were big heavy men, with powdered hair, and a great deal of
red and yellow about them, and dangling cords and tassels. I always
thought the carriage must be a little like the Lord Mayor's coach. Lord
Wheatstone's carriage, which sometimes passed our door, didn't make
half so fine a show, for it was plain and dark, and the coachman and
footman wore plain dark liveries too—only there was a coronet painted
on the door, and the horses were such splendid spirited creatures. I
liked the dark carriage best, but father called it shabby beside the
Johnstones' carriage.

Well, as I say, the Johnstones stopped at our gate, and mother was
quite in a flurry, and went hurrying into the garden, with her cap all
on one side. Mrs. Johnstone did not get out, for she was so extremely
stout that moving was a great trouble to her. She was dressed in bright
ruby-coloured velvet, and a jacket to match, and she had a sweeping
straw-coloured ostrich feather on her bonnet, and yellow kid gloves. It
looked grand, but I could not quite admire the red and yellow together,
though mother thought them lovely. Mrs. Johnstone kept her talking for
some minutes, and seemed to think a deal of our "good fortune," as she
called it. Mother's head was quite turned, and she could think and talk
of nothing for the rest of the day but velvets and silks and feathers.
I suppose that sort of taste is catching. I remember looking at my
print dress, and thinking how much I should like a pretty new frock.
And just after doing so, I caught grannie's eye, and she said—

"Feathers don't make the bird, my dear."

"I do like pretty things, grannie," I said.

"So do I, Phœbe," she answered. "But nothing ever looks pretty out of
its right place."

"Would a nice new frock for me be out of its right place?" I asked.

"No, not a nice one, perhaps," she said—"if it was the right way of
spending the money. But a smart one would. Don't be easy taken in, my
girl. If Mrs. Johnstone was a true lady, she wouldn't be driving about
in that dress."

"Wouldn't she?" I said.

Grannie laughed, and said—"Think of Mrs. Scott now, Phœbe. Would she?"

"O no," I said. "But then Mrs. Scott always does dress so quiet."

"Well, think of Lady Wheatstone. You've seen her pass, many a time.
Would she?"

"No," I said. "But then it isn't her way to put on such smart things. I
suppose she doesn't like them."

"That's just it," says grannie. "She don't like them, and Mrs. Scott
don't like them, and if Mrs. Johnstone was a true lady she wouldn't
like them either. I don't say but what she may be a nice enough person
in other ways, if she does make mistakes in her dress. But they are
mistakes, Phœbe. That red velvet, with all the smart trimmings and the
yellow feather atop, would do well enough, maybe, if she was going to
a Queen's drawing-room, or a Parliament opening, or something of that
sort, but they are not fit for driving about in a little place like
this. It's just as out of place for her, as if I was to go trudging
about in the mud with a green silk dress on."

Mother had been talking about buying a green silk dress for herself
that very morning. But grannie had not heard her; if she had, she would
have taken right good care not to say words which should seem like
blaming a mother to her child—and I would not tell grannie.

Another day our clergyman, Mr. Scott, came. He was an elderly man, with
silver hair, and a thoughtful way of speaking, and bright eyes which
seemed to look one through. Father was at home when he called. Mother
slipped away into the back garden, when she saw him in the distance,
for somehow mother never much cared for Mr. Scott. But grannie did love
him, and look up to him. She made him sit down in the best chair, and
looked as pleased as possible to have him there.

Of course the five thousand pounds were soon spoken of. Mr. Scott told
father first how glad he was to hear the news, and how nice it was for
us all. He said it in such a kind way, that father was quite pleased.
And then Mr. Scott asked father what were his plans.

"Well, I don't just exactly know," father said. "I'm meaning to take
a bit of a holiday for one thing, and I did think it would be nice to
have a bigger cottage than this: but mother says she'll stick by the
old place, and I'm loth to part from her; so we'll wait a while. I've a
mind to get some tidy furniture, though, and my wife has a great notion
of a silk dress. And we'll have a trip to the sea some fine day."

Mr. Scott listened to all this, and smiled, and didn't seem to think
of blaming anybody or anything. I thought grannie was a little
disappointed. But presently, somehow, he was talking quietly to father
about investing the money, and asking him what he meant to do. For of
course five thousand pounds could not be left to lie about, he said,
and it was a large sum to put into a county bank. Suppose the bank
should fail. Such things did happen.

"Mr. Carver did say something about investments," father said. "But I
don't know as I paid much heed. You see, sir, he is a lawyer, and they
do say lawyers have a wonderful trick of keeping back some of the money
that slips through their fingers;—though, for the matter of that, so
have most people."

"You cannot expect them to work without payment," said Mr. Scott. "A
lawyer has his living to get, as well as any other man. Of course there
are honest and dishonest lawyers; but Mr. Carver is one of the honest
sort. He is an honourable man, and you may quite rely on his advice."

Then Mr. Scott talked about different ways of "putting out money,"
as he called it. I heard such words as "stocks," and "shares," and
"railways," and "interest." Father exclaimed presently,—"Only four per
cent! That wouldn't be much."

"It would bring you in a nice little income of two hundred a year,"
said Mr. Scott. "Better have that secure, than aim higher and perhaps
in the end lose it all."

"Why, Bill Jenkins told me I'd ought to have ten per cent at least,"
said father. "And that 'ud be an income of five hundred a year. I was
counting on five hundred, so as we could live easy."

Mr. Scott shook his head. "Too much," he said. "Ten per cent is far too
high for safety, Murdock. Take my advice, and don't risk your capital
where such high interest is given. Four per cent, is likely to be safe.
You might even go safely as high as five per cent perhaps, but that is
doubtful."

Father did not much take to the notion. He had been talking so big, and
making so much of the thought of five hundred pounds a year, that two
hundred a year seemed small in comparison.



CHAPTER V.

FIRST PURCHASES.

DAYS went by, and still the money did not come. Father grew chafed and
restless waiting for it, and mother was in a state of constant ups
and downs. Every morning we were keeping watch on the post, and every
morning we were disappointed afresh.

"It's no manner of use to be so impatient," grannie said sometimes.
"You know right well, Miles, that the lawyers are not bound to pay you
short of a twelvemonth, and nobody thinks they'll do it yet awhile."

"Then they ought," father made answer very hotly: for he was getting
hasty and not near so pleasant in his ways as he used to be. "We ought
to have the money now directly. Not pay for a twelvemonth, indeed! It's
my money, not theirs. What right have they to keep us waiting?"

But of course we had to wait all the same, whether he was vexed or no.

It was wonderful how folks ran after us in those days. I had not known
before that we had one quarter so many friends. The neighbours were for
ever dropping in to talk of our good fortune, and mother seemed such a
favourite with them all. I could not help thinking that the money had a
good deal to do with her being so, else why should they have cared so
little about her before we heard of the five thousand pounds? Grannie
felt the same about it that I did, I could see plainly enough, but
mother did not. She took it all for real, and was delighted.

A great many asked us out to Sunday dinners, and did their best to
give good fare. We hadn't been used to going out on a Sunday to dine,
for grannie had always set her face against the custom, and father had
only once in a way done it. But now he said it would seem stuck-up and
unneighbourly to refuse, just when this "windfall," as he called it,
had come to us. He said it would look as if we counted ourselves too
grand for the neighbours.

Grannie told him the real question lay deeper; for it wasn't a question
of giving offence to one or two people, who ought to know us better
than to be so easily offended, but of breaking God's holy day. But
father was not to be persuaded, and he and mother went out Sunday after
Sunday, and took Asaph with them. And, somehow, after father had been
out pleasuring all the afternoon, he did not seem inclined to go to
Church in the evening, as he had been always used to do; and one day
and another he found some excuse for staying away. I could see that it
was a great grief to grannie.

I did not go to these dinners with father and mother, but kept grannie
company at home. It was grannie's wish, and mother did not care, for
Asaph was her favourite. I don't think I always quite liked being the
one left behind, and yet I should not have been happy doing anything
else. But if I did not like it, I took care that grannie should not see
what I felt. She was sorry enough already about the break-up of our old
quiet Sundays.

One day father came in, chuckling and laughing, and carrying a big
bundle under his arm.

"What d'you think I've got now?" says he. "O Miles! has the money come
at last?" shrieked mother.

"No, it hasn't," said he. "Why, you don't think surely that I'd be
carrying five thousand pounds rolled up into a bundle like this! No,
it isn't the money, but it's something. And it don't so much matter
now, if the money should be longer coming. They'll trust me down at
Trowgood's for anything I want. Trowgood himself came up to me in the
street, and told me so, as civil as could be. So I went straight off
with him, and did some shopping."

"I don't like Mr. Trowgood, and I never did," said grannie. "He's a
deep one, Miles."

"Maybe so, maybe no," says father. "Deep or shallow, that won't keep
me from using his goods, if so be they suit my wants. And nobody could
speak more civil than he did, anyway. Look here, Sue."

Father untied the bundle, while we all stood round. I saw grannie shake
her head softly to herself, once or twice, as if she didn't like it at
all. But we children could not help thinking the big brown-paper parcel
very delightful, for we had not seen many such in our lives. And when
it was rolled open, mother quite screamed with delight at the first
thing her eyes fell on. For there on the top lay a quantity of smooth
bright shining green silk. I almost thought mother would say it was
too bright and shining for her. But she did not. She only laughed and
clapped her hands, and seemed half beside herself.

"That's the thing now, isn't it?" says father. "Green was the colour
you wanted, Sue, and I've chosen the smartest I could see in all the
shop, so as you should look your best. You'll have to get it made up
quick, and we'll have some folks in to dinner, to look at you. Why, I
shall hardly know you, I declare, nor anybody else either. See here!
I've bought a real coral necklace for Phœbe. Isn't that pretty, my
girl? And here's a cap for Asaph. And I haven't forgotten you, mother.
I knew you wouldn't like a green dress, and I had my doubts if you'd
wear a silk; so I've chose some good black stuff,—merino, Trowgood
says, and the very best they have. You'll wear that to please me."

"Why, it looks like mourning," mother said.

"Grannie never will wear anything but black for her best, and I wanted
to get what she'd use," says father.

Grannie was feeling the merino between her finger and thumb.

"It's beautiful stuff," she said—"the best I ever had. And I'm much
obliged to you for thinking of me, Miles. It's like your kind heart.
But I'd sooner you had waited till the money was come. Supposing it
wasn't to come after all, how would you pay for these things?"

"Oh, nonsense, mother,—bother!" said he. "The money's sure."

"Maybe so," said she. "But I'll wait to have my dress made up till it
does come."

"I shan't wait," mother said, tossing her head back.

"I shall," grannie said. "I'm obliged to you, Miles, but you'll please
to remember that I'm not going to have anything else got for me at all,
till the money has come. I don't think it's right. I would send this
back straight to Trowgood's, if I wasn't afraid of vexing you."

"It would vex me too," father said. "That's a nice sort of gratitude,
I do think. It would vex me, mother, and what's more, Trowgood never
takes back cut goods. So you'll just have to be content, and if you're
a wise woman you'll get it made up, and wear it when Sue wears her
green silk."

"But haven't you got anything for yourself, Miles?" asked mother,
looking as pleased as a child over a new toy.

"Haven't I?" said father. "Dear me, yes, a whole new suit. It isn't
made up yet, but it soon will be. And I've got a brand new sofa for the
parlour, and a clock for the mantel-shelf,—cheap enough, but Trowgood
says it'll go like a twenty-guinea clock. Oh, we'll have things smart
now, and no mistake. Anything else you want me to get, Sue?"

"I'd like a new cap," mother said. "I saw a beauty to-day, in
Trowgood's window, all over pink bows. And I do want a new bonnet for
Sundays. I'm sure I should go to Church ever so much more regular, if
I had a decent bonnet to show myself in. Mine's got washed strings,
and the flowers are all faded. And wouldn't it be nice if we were to
get a new carpet for the parlour, and put up the old one in a bedroom?
The pattern's all trodden out, and it never was anything but a dingy
fright. I should like something nice and bright,—like Mrs. Raikes'
carpet. I don't see why she's to have a prettier carpet than us, now
we've got five thousand pounds."

"We haven't got it yet, Sue," says grannie.

"Well, we're going to have it," mother answered. "And we may just as
well get the carpet. I don't see why we should wait."

"Nor I neither," father said.

"I do," said grannie, looking at them. "Miles, if you take my advice,
you'll do nothing in a hurry."

But father was in no mood for waiting, nor mother either. The new
carpet was chosen, and a grand one we children thought it, for there
were huge bunches of red and purple flowers and green leaves, on a
sort of yellowish ground. The old carpet, which had lasted nearly all
through grannie's married life until now, was a real Brussels, and it
had only a small brown pattern with a little red in it. The new was not
a Brussels, but only a cheap sort of tapestry, which Mr. Trowgood said
would wear "next door to a Brussels." And the bunches of flowers were
so big, that only four whole ones could get into our little bit of a
parlour. And the odd part of the matter was, that the room seemed all
at once to have grown much smaller. I didn't know why then, though I am
sure now that it was because the pattern was too large for the size of
the room. Small-patterned carpets and papers always make a room seem
bigger. When I asked grannie how she liked it, she only said: "I love
the dear old carpet, Phœbe. No new one can ever be what the old one was
to me."

Four new chairs with stuffed blue seats and yellow buttons were bought
at the same time; and they did smarten up the room wonderfully, there's
no denying. The new sofa was blue too, only it did not quite match the
chairs. And the clock looked grand on the mantel-shelf, for it had
a lot of gilt about it. It went all right for two days, and then it
stopped, and wouldn't go any longer. But when father spoke about it,
Trowgood said it must have been wrongly wound up, and father was so
afraid of vexing him that he didn't complain any more.

Mother got herself the new cap, and a fine new bonnet too, and she
spent a good deal of time before the looking-glass, trying them on. And
the only thing grannie said about it all to me was: "They must learn,
Phœbe. People have to learn by experience. You and I can't help it.
Maybe all will come right in the end. But if you want to please me, my
dear, you'll not wear the coral necklace yet awhile."

"No, I won't, grannie," I said. "I'll wait till you put on your new
gown."



CHAPTER VI.

AN ALARM.

A FEW days later, father suddenly found that all was not quite so sure
as he had thought about the five thousand pounds. For the son, who had
expected the money, made up his mind to "dispute the will," as it is
called. He went to the lawyers, and tried to prove that it was all a
mistake, and that the money ought properly to go to him, not us. He
wanted to make out that his old father had not been right in the head,
at the time that he made the will. If he could show this to be the
case, it would of course make all the difference.

I shall never forget seeing father come in, just after hearing that the
will was to be disputed. It was Saturday morning, and we were going
to have the Jenkinses and the Dickensons and the Raikes' to dinner,
and afterwards there was to be an excursion of all of us together to a
place called Sunny Point, where we were going to have a sort of picnic
tea in some respectable tea-gardens.

There had been quite a struggle, because father was bent on a Sunday
dinner to the neighbours, and grannie was set against it. Father was
downright angry, and mother cried and fretted because grannie would
not give in. Grannie did not say very much, for it wasn't her way to
waste words; but she did say she would have nothing to do with the
matter, for she couldn't on principle make God's day one of junketing
and pleasure. But nothing could be done without her; for mother was a
poor cook, and the dinner would just have been a failure altogether,
if grannie had not cooked it. Then, when father was vexed and mother
upset, grannie quietly asked why it could not be Saturday instead, and
offered to do anything they liked for Saturday. And so it was settled.

Grannie and I had been hard at work, for I always helped her, and we
had a beautiful dinner nearly ready. Grannie did not like the expense
of it all; but having made a stand about the more important matter
of Sabbath-breaking, she would not make a stir about this too. So
there was to be for once a thorough good turn-out. Grannie had her
Sunday dress ready to put on at the last moment, and I had put on mine
already, and mother was in the parlour, wearing her new green silk,
with bright glass buttons all down the front, and a cap with pink bows.
She did look smart, and no mistake; and the blue sofa and chairs and
the gay carpet helped to make her still smarter. I peeped in once or
twice in the middle of my work, and saw her fidgeting about and making
a grand rustling. But somehow it didn't seem like mother. I'd rather
have had her as I was used.

Then I was back in the kitchen with grannie: and I was just lifting off
a saucepan from the fire when I heard a shriek. It startled me so, that
I very nearly dropped the saucepan; and well scalded I should have been
if I had.

"Steady, Phœbe," grannie said. "One thing at a time, my dear. Put that
down safely. Now go and ask what is the matter. I saw your father come
in."

I rushed off to the parlour, and found mother in tears, with her face
as red as fire. But father was the worst. I never saw father look so
before. The first thought that came into my mind was that a wicked
spirit must have got inside him. And though I tried to put the thought
away, it came back. Father was talking fast in a loud fierce tone, and
it made me tremble. I heard him use a bad word, and that frightened me,
for I had never heard him say bad words. Grannie was so particular, and
she had brought him up to be the same. He may have been different among
other people; but before grannie and with us children, he had always
been careful. I suppose he was in such a passion that he hardly knew
what he was saying. And I just rushed back to the kitchen, and dragged
grannie with me to the parlour.

"What is the matter?" said she, looking at them.

"Matter!" father said, and he turned round upon her, and said the words
again, in a fierce sort of way. Grannie went up to him and put her hand
on his shoulder.

[Illustration: "I EXPECTED AS MUCH."]

"Miles," she said, "you never spoke so before me yet, and you won't
again, if you don't want to break your old mother's heart."

"A man can't be always choosing his words," father said roughly, and he
shook her hand off. "Here's a nice go! That fellow's setting to work to
prove that the old man was mad when he made the will."

"I expected as much," grannie said. "And if they prove it?"

"They can't prove it. I'd defy all England to prove it,—without a pack
of lies is to be taken as truth," father said in a passionate way. "The
old man was as clear in the head as you or I."

Grannie didn't ask him how he knew this, since he had not seen Andrew
Morison for years. She only said: "But if they do prove it?"

"They can't, I tell you. If they did, the money wouldn't come to us.
But they can't-they shan't!" And father stamped his foot.

"The money is left to us, and it's ours. It's ours!"

"Maybe it'll be ours by-and-by," grannie said. "I hope it may be,
if it's for our good. But it isn't ours yet, Miles, and I should be
better satisfied, for my part, if you had waited, and not got all these
things."

"I shouldn't," father shouted, seeming as if he wanted to drown
everybody's speech except his own. "I shouldn't be better satisfied;
and what's more, I shan't stop. The money's sure to come. Old Morison
was as clear-headed as yourself, mother, and if there's any right
and justice in the land, they'll give it so. It's like Jem Morison's
sneaking ways to go and do this. But he'll fail. He'll fail, as sure as
my name is Miles Murdock. I hope they'll saddle him with costs too, and
serve him out."

"Somebody has to be disappointed, anyway," grannie said. "And it's
worse for him than for you: for he's been expecting for years, and
you've only thought about it a little while. But the meat'll be
spoiling, if I don't go and see to it."

"And, oh dear me! there's the Dickensons coming, and it's half-past
twelve, and I've got such a red face," mother said. "O dear me! I wish
you hadn't gone and told us until they were gone. What shall we do, if
the money don't come after all? You don't really think we shan't have
it, do you, Miles?"

"No, I don't," father said shortly; but it was plain he didn't feel
easy in his mind.

Grannie and I went back to the kitchen, and she did not abate one jot
of care for all that had to be done; but presently she gave a sigh, and
said to herself,—"How ever in the world folks can be so silly!"

"Father and mother?" I asked.

"I didn't mean that for you, Phœbe," said she. "It's no place of a
child to blame her parents. But it is a want of sense. Supposing the
money don't come after all?"

"Wouldn't you be very sorry?" I asked.

"Maybe so," she said. "Five thousand pounds has a tempting sound, and
I like things to be easy and plentiful as well as others do. But I do
say, and I mean it too, that I'd sooner it should never come at all,
than have you all go wrong with its coming."

"But why should we, grannie?" I asked. "Why should we? Lots of folks
have money, as much as that and more, and don't go wrong with it."

"True enough," she said. "But it's the sudden riches after being poor
that's the danger, Phœbe. It isn't the keeping on with what one's used
to. There's many a head been turned, and many a heart gone wrong, with
sudden riches. I don't say but what there's grace enough to keep one
through the danger, if we'll seek it—if we'll ask it, Phœbe."

And I knew she meant that father and mother were not thinking of
danger, and were not asking to be kept through it.

Dinner had soon to be dished up and taken in. Grannie changed her
dress in a hurry, for father would not have been happy without. The
Dickensons and all the rest were come, and our little parlour was just
stuffed full. I saw the neighbours eyeing mother's green silk; and one
or two of them made faces at one another about it on the sly, and I
thought they were jealous. But they need not have been, if they had
known how we were thinking about that silk dress, supposing the money
should not come! Mrs. Dickenson asked mother where she had got it; and
Mrs. Jenkins wanted to know how much she had paid by the yard; and Mrs.
Raikes fingered it and said she knew of better to be had at a less
price. And I did not think all this was quite mannerly, somehow; but
mother seemed to like it, and she became quite merry.

But father had a gloomy look, and I saw that he could not forget what
he had heard. Just as we were sitting down to dinner, he spied me and
said—

"Where is your necklace, Phœbe?"

"I didn't put it on, father," I said, getting red in the face.

"Then go and put it on this minute, Phœbe," he said angrily.

I could not help trembling a little, and I only just managed to get out
the words,—"Grannie said—"

"I don't care what grannie said, nor anybody else neither. Go and put
it on,—d'you hear?"

I looked at grannie, and she said, "Do as father tells you, Phœbe."

So I rushed off, and put it on. But I did not like doing so. I had a
sort of feeling that it was bought with money which was not ours, and
which never might be, and I seemed almost to hate the coral necklace.
For I could not bear to see grannie sad, and father so unlike himself.

I don't think any of us enjoyed that Saturday very much, though to be
sure there was plenty of talk and of laughing.



CHAPTER VII.

TO GO OR TO STAY.

THOUGH father had said he did not mean to stop getting things from
Trowgood's, because he was so sure the money would come to us, still
he thought better of this. I am not at all sure that Trowgood, hearing
what was going on, did not give father a hint that it was best to wait.
Anyway we did wait.

I think this waiting-time was a good thing for us. At least, I know it
was good for me; and I suppose it might have been good for the others
too, if they had been willing. For of course one must be willing,
before anything can do one good in life; and father and mother were
not willing. Father never seemed to think of any part of the matter as
coming straight from God. All he talked about was Jem Morison and the
lawyers—and very hotly he did talk at times.

But, as I say, the waiting was good, or it ought to have been goad. It
gave us leisure for thought, and for getting over the first excitement
of the news. It's well to be able to sift and weigh a matter, before
having to take action. To be sure, father had acted already, as
regarded the things bought; but still in some measure his hands had
been tied, and now they were tied yet more.

One Sunday afternoon grannie and I were sitting together, having our
tea. The other three had been to dinner with the Raikes', and were not
back yet: so we were afraid there must be some sort of Sunday excursion
as well as dinner. Grannie and I had been having a nice quiet afternoon
together, and grannie seemed tired, so I got the tea for her earlier
than usual, and we had the kettle boiling in good time.

"If they don't come soon, they won't be in time for Church," I said.

"Not for the first time," grannie answered, and she spoke in a sad sort
of way. "I'm sore afraid of its being a habit that will grow. It's
wonderful how anything of a bad habit does grow. Just let it alone like
a weed, and it's sure to sprout. I suppose good habits go against the
grain, for they do take a deal of tending."

"But father was brought up to Church-going," I said.

"Yes, yes, he was brought up to it. There wasn't anything a-wanting in
the bringing-up, so far as I know. But though a mother's bringing-up
can do a lot, it can't put God's grace into a man's heart. It can't do
that."

"Father always used to like so much to go to Church," I said.

"He liked to please his old mother, Phœbe," said she. "That's what it
was—not so much of liking the worship of God for its own sake. I'd
sooner it had been that—more hope of its lasting, if it had. But the
pleasing of his old mother isn't so much to him now. He's got little
thought or care save for his five thousand pounds—which mayn't ever be
his really neither."

"Do you think it won't come to us, grannie?" I asked, and I couldn't
help longing that it might.

"I don't think either way," said she. "It may or it mayn't. I've no
manner of means of knowing whether Andrew Morison was in his right
senses or no. If it does come it'll be a solemn trust from God; and I'm
sorely afraid lest it should be squandered away with no thought at all
of Him in the spending."

"Mother was talking again yesterday about going into a bigger house,"
I said. "She does want it so, grannie; and father is quite set on five
hundred a year, and not only two hundred."

"Well, you nor I can't check him," she said. "But this cottage is mine,
and it shan't be sold while I live. If they go, I'll stay on here and
work for myself. It's little I should want. I'm too old for settling
into a new home at my time of life. I've been thirty years and more
here, and please God I'll stay till I die."

"O grannie! I hope if they go they'll let me live with you," I said.

"No," she answered, "that isn't likely. They'll want you to work
for them—without they're going to set up grand, and have servants
like gentlefolks. I'd believe in pretty near any sort of folly. But,
there—I'm forgetting—that's no sort of manner to speak in to you about
them. You're but a child, and you've got to do as you are told."

"But if we live in another house away from you—and if they tell me to
do things that are wrong! O grannie! do come with us," I cried; and I
turned and caught hold of her dress, and held it fast. "It's only you
that can keep us straight."

"Only me!" said she.

And she sat looking before her, not at me but at something which I
could not see, as it were, and a sort of glow came into her face, as it
was wont to do, once in a way. And I cried again, holding her tightly
still, "O grannie! don't let us be apart. Everything will go wrong in
the new house, if you won't come there with us."

"You're right and you're wrong, Phœbe," she said at last, arousing
herself and fixing her eyes upon me. "You're wrong and you're right.
Yes—wrong. For it isn't I that can keep you straight—you nor any of
them. I,—why I can't keep myself, much less other folks! It's God that
can keep you straight, and none other."

Then, after a little pause, she went on—

"But you're right too, and I see it now. I can't keep you right, but
maybe God would use me. It's little enough I could do; but what if
He wants me to do that little? Yes—I see now. I've been clinging in
thought to the old home—and I do cling, and I love the very walls and
boards; and a new home at my time of life would be nigh a heart-break
to me, after all the years and years I've lived here, first with your
grandfather, and then with your father. But I've been forgetting to ask
what was the right thing for me to do. It isn't sense for me to cling
more to boards and rafters than to living flesh and blood. And after
all, you'll need me more than the old home will. It's a dear old home
to me, Phœbe. But love may be selfish, and I think mine has been so.
I'll have to keep stricter watch for the future. And if you all go,
I'll come too. Maybe it'll not be for long—that's as God wills. But
I'll not leave you to fight on alone, till God calls me—and then I'll
have no choice, and I'll be content to leave the rest to Him. So we'll
go all together, Phœbe. Will that set your mind at rest, child?"

"O grannie! it's all I wanted," I said. "Everything's sure to go
straight now."

But she shook her head and said, "It's the old old story,—leaning on a
broken reed. I suppose it isn't till the reed gives way under us, that
we turn to lean on God."



CHAPTER VIII.

THE NEW HOUSE.

IT was only two or three days after that Sunday afternoon, that we
heard of the money being sure to us. The matter had been gone into, and
James Morison had done his very best to prove that his old father was
crazed at the time of the making of the will. I dare say he believed it
himself, after a fashion. Most people can manage to believe a thing,
if they want it very much to be true. But there was no real proof, and
his case broke down. A good many people were ready to say what a shame
it was of the old man to disinherit his son; but none had power to undo
the deed done.

"So now it's quite certain—certain and sure," father said. "No more
need to croak and look dismal, mother. Now the money's ours, and we'll
do our best to get a little pleasure out of it."

Grannie had been looking grave, but not dismal, for it wasn't her way.
Some people call everything dismal that isn't full of noisy merriment.
I never could see, for my part, why one should be the happier for
making a noise. Grannie did not seem put out, though, at his words. She
only looked up at him, and said—"No, Miles, the money is not yours."

"Well, well, it soon will be," said he, "if you must be so particular."

"No," said she in the same manner. "It never will be yours, my dear."

"Why, grannie, what silly notion have you got in your head now?" said
he quite angrily. "Never will be mine! I tell you, the thing is as sure
and certain as can be, and the money's as good as mine already. The
matter's settled, and Jem Morison is beat out-and-out. It'll come, sure
enough."

"Yes, maybe," she answered. "The five thousand pounds is coming to you,
Miles, my dear; but it's only lent. It isn't yours. 'The silver and
gold are the Lord's.' He only lends it, Miles."

"Oh, of course—to be sure," father said, his face clearing. "I didn't
see what you were at. That's all right and well, mother—and quite
proper for one at your age to be religious. But it don't alter the fact
that I'm to have five thousand pounds."

"Yes, to have it in your hands," grannie said. "But there'll be a day
of reckoning, Miles, and every penny of that you'll have to account for
to Him who owns it. I've thought it sometimes a fearful thing for rich
folks, with their thousands and thousands, lent them by God to be spent
for Him, and all to be accounted for. And now we'll have some of that
same burden to bear."

"One would think we were going in for some awful trouble, only to
hear you speak," father said. "But you're not going to put me into
the dismals, mother, for all you can say. If it's a burden, it's an
uncommon pleasant sort. Wish it was a little heavier, that's all."

"Yes, that's the way with men," says grannie quietly. "You'll soon
begin to look on five thousand pounds as nothing, and to wish it was
ten."

"Well, I shouldn't mind now, if it was ten," father said.

The next thing that came up was about a change of house. Mother
wouldn't let the matter rest. Father did not seem to like the thought
at first, for he knew how grannie was set against it. Grannie did not
say to them what she had said to me, but just waited; and I did not
tell it either. But mother let father have no peace. She was bent on
getting a house in the same row with the Raikes', and on having a
parlour that would beat Mrs. Raikes' parlour in smartness.

She and father talked it over one day, when grannie was not at hand.
Father said he knew grannie would never leave the cottage; and mother
said, it did not matter, for we should be quite near. Father said, it
did matter, for there would be nothing straight without her, and nobody
to do the work and the cooking, "and Phœbe couldn't manage all that
alone." Mother said, "No, of course not, but we would keep a girl like
the Raikes', and manage so." Father said he didn't see who would cook.
And mother said, "Phœbe would, of course." Father said he didn't see
why I was to drudge while others took their ease; but it was no good
talking, for if grannie wouldn't come too, he should not leave the
cottage. Mother pouted, and said that father cared more for grannie
than for her. Father said it wasn't true; and mother said, yes, it
was, or he wouldn't want her to live in a horrid little pokey hole,
when he could afford her a nice house as well as not. And then she
cried, and talked about her own home, when she was a girl, and wished
she had never left it. Mother's father had been a tallow-chandler, and
well-to-do, and mother had been a spoilt child.

Just when they got so far, grannie walked in. She heard mother's
last words, and asked what it all meant. Father told her, and she
said—"What's your wish, Miles?"

"I don't want to go without you, mother," says he. "I've never lived
apart from you yet, and I don't mean to, if I can help it. I should
think of you as lonesome here; and we should want you too."

"But that's your only reason?" says she. "You've no feeling at leaving
the old place."

"Well, no—can't say as I have," said father. "I shouldn't mind a scrap
more room to turn round in."

"And the money?" said she.

"Oh, that's all right," says he. "I'm going to invest, so as it'll
bring us in nigh upon five hundred a year."

"Mr. Scott didn't count so much to be safe."

"Mr. Scott don't know everything," father said. "I suppose I'm as good
a judge as most. I'm not going to throw the money away, mother, you may
be sure. But supposing we say four hundred a year,—it don't make so
much difference. We can afford a bigger house than this, anyway."

"Well, you must do what you think best," grannie said. "You're not
a boy now, to take an old woman's advice. A man must look out for
himself. I'll leave you to settle about the other house, Miles. It
don't so much matter to me. I'm an old woman, and I can't look to live
in any house many more years. I did say at first that I never would of
my own free will go out of this, where I've been all my married life.
But maybe that was selfishness. Maybe I could be of more use going than
staying. If it's God's will for me, I'm willing—that's all. So you
needn't think about me, Miles. If you both feel it's the best and right
thing to do, I'll come with you."

Father seemed very pleased. I had not seen him so kind for a good
while past. He said more than once—"That's right, mother—things'll go
straight now."

The very next day father came in, saying there was a house to let in
Pleasant Row, only three doors off from the Raikes'. I wondered if
mother had seen it before. She and father went to look it over, and
when they came back they could talk of nothing else. The rent was forty
pounds, and that seemed a deal; but mother said—"What was forty pounds
out of five hundred?" It was only a small house, but the rents in the
town had been getting very high of late.

The house had to be taken at once, if at all, for somebody else was
asking after it. Grannie begged father to wait and do nothing till
the money should come. But he said it would be a thousand pities to
miss the chance, for they might not find another so nice, and he could
easily get the money lent him for the first quarter's rent.

"We needn't move in yet, you know," he said.

So it was all settled, and the next thing spoken about was that the
cottage must be sold. I think that did go to grannie's heart. But she
never made a word of complaint—only sometimes I saw her looking at one
thing and another, as if she were saying such a sorrowful good-bye.
Poor grannie! I wondered often at her patience.



CHAPTER IX.

NOTHING TO DO.

TROWGOOD was willing to trust to any amount for the furniture; so the
making ready of the new house began at once. Mother said she did not
see any good in waiting, for the bills could be paid as soon as ever
the money came, and father was of the same mind.

There was a great deal to be done to the house. Father took it in such
a hurry, that he did not have a proper agreement made; and when he
found afterwards what a number of repairs were wanted, he had to do it
all himself, for the landlord was a churlish sort of body, and said
"No" to pretty nearly everything asked.

Mother was vexed because father had not thought of these matters
sooner; but father said, what did it signify? He seemed to think five
thousand pounds could do everything.

He and mother were agreed on one head, and that was that the house
must make a smart appearance. The top rooms were damp, and the kitchen
had water oozing out all over the walls, and there was a queer sort of
smell in the parlour, which grannie said ought to be attended to. She
said our cottage had always been so sweet and dry, and that was partly
how we had all kept such good health. She told father he had a deal
better have the dampness and the smell cured, and spend less on carpets
and gimcracks. But mother said—"Who cared for a little wet?" and father
said,—"All in good time, grannie." And he seemed to think the "good
time" should come late, not early.

The new carpet, which was chosen in such a hurry for our cottage, would
not fit the new parlour, and Trowgood said he could not get any more of
the same pattern. Mother seemed rather glad. She had that put into the
biggest bedroom,—at least she settled that it should go there when we
moved,—and she chose another, quite as smart, which cost a great deal
more, and so she liked it better.

It is wonderful what a number of things are wanted in a new house.
Mother did not seem to care to keep anything out of the dear old
cottage. Grannie and I were to sleep together still, and we settled to
furnish our room with things that we had by us, and to have nothing
new at all. But whatever we did not want for our room was to be sold.
Mother seemed bent on having all quite fresh. I think the thought of
parting with the old furniture that she loved so much cut very deeply
with grannie.

Father was still working for the Johnstones, but he did not work
regular as he was used to do before. He seemed to have a sort of
distaste for it. Sundays were getting to be just days of pleasure and
amusement, with no thought of God in them; and on Monday he commonly
had a lazy fit, and lounged about doing nothing. Sometimes the lazy fit
lasted over Tuesday as well. He used before to have a bright brisk way
of doing things, but he was losing that now. I think Mr. Johnstone or
the foreman must have found fault with him once or twice, for I heard
him talking about them angrily, and saying "he wouldn't be driven—not
he,—thank goodness he had enough and to spare now, and he should please
himself."

I don't at all know whether father meant to go on with the same work,
after he got his money. I think it is likely he was in a sort of
uncertain state, waiting to see what to do. He would have money enough
to start him in something better, or even to live an idle life. But
he had been trained to no other kind of work; and it is quite certain
that no hale and hearty man in middle life can be happy with nothing
to do. There are men who can make their own work and find their own
interests,—men who can be quite happy in doing good to others, or in
studying God's works, or in reading books. But reading was always a
labour to father, and he knew and cared nothing about study; and I
don't suppose he ever thought of such a thing as steady doing of good
to others, though of course he would have been ready any day to give a
crust to a starving man, if he came across him by chance.

But, as I say, I do not know what father really meant to do. I think it
startled him, and I am sure it was a great shock to us all, when Mr.
Johnstone dismissed him from his employ.

There was no warning given; except that I believe there had been
several complaints of father's irregular way of working. Mr. Johnstone
did not speak to father himself. The foreman told him he would not be
wanted any more, after a certain day. Father was angry and wanted to
know why. The answer was, that Mr. Johnstone had not been satisfied
with him for a good while, and as he had rather more hands than he
wanted just then, of course those who had been least steady at work
must be the first to go.

Years later I heard more, in other quarters. I know now that poor
father had more than once forgotten himself, and had spoken in an
uppish sort of way, and had talked too much of his "good luck," and
had seemed to think himself pretty much on a level with his master.
And neither master nor men liked it. I know that Mr. Johnstone told a
friend he found father's influence "demoralising," whatever that might
mean. He said the other men were getting unsettled and discontented,
and he could not allow it to go on.

But we had known nothing of all this; and when father came home, and
told us he was not to work there any more, we did not know what to
think of it.

Father was very angry, and yet he tried to seem as if he did not care.
He talked big, and said he was right glad, and he didn't mean to be
any more at the beck and call of that fellow Sykes. Sykes was the
foreman. Mother seemed half frightened and half pleased. And grannie
was very quiet, and her dear face looked so pale. I had seen that pale
look often lately, and I knew she was fretted and worried. She said at
last,—"What are you going to do, Miles?"

"Do! Why, stay away," says he roughly.

"But the money isn't come yet, and we can't live on nothing till it
does," grannie said.

"Oh, there's no need," father said. "I could get other work easy
enough. But I don't see why I'm to work like a poor man, when I have
five thousand pounds of my own. I don't see it at all."

"God's law is work," said grannie in a low voice. "He gave us the
Sunday for rest. But He gave us a clear command too,—'SIX DAYS SHALT
THOU LABOUR.'"

"It's a command lots of people break, then," said father.

I think that father, like a good many people, fancied "work" and
"labour" can only mean bodily toil. I know better now. I have seen more
of life, and I know there are many different kinds of work,—hand-work,
and head-work, and heart-work. The man that is piling up bricks and
mortar may not be toiling one quarter so hard, as the man who sits
quiet in a chair, working out some deep thought for other men, or the
woman who wears herself out in ceaseless watching of her children and
caring for their good.

"What are we to do, Miles?" grannie asked again.

"Oh, I'll see about it," said father. "There's no hurry. I'll get a job
or two somewhere. And they'll let us have things on credit anywhere. My
good fortune is well enough known. We shan't starve."

"Maybe not," grannie said. "But if you don't look out, my dear, you'll
make a big hole in your five thousand pounds, before ever it comes to
you."

Father laughed loud at the idea. The money seemed to him too much ever
to come to an end. Grannie went out of the room, and I went after her,
I didn't know why. She crossed into the parlour, and sat down, and I
was frightened at the look in her face.

"It's nothing," she said,—"only a sort of fainty feeling that comes
over me once in a while. Just to show me I'm an old woman, maybe. Don't
you mind."

"O grannie, is it because you're fretting at having to leave the old
home?" I asked: for I knew how it grieved her.

"I dare say it is," she said: "I've a silly sort of fondness for
places, and somehow I've never felt right and like myself since that
was settled. But I'll have no words spoken to them, Phœbe. For it's not
that which cuts most deep. It is seeing how things are tending, and
knowing I can do nought to stop what is wrong."

And I knew what she meant.



CHAPTER X.

MR. SIMMONS.

ABOUT ten days after this, father said to us one morning that we were
to have a nice dinner ready, for he was going to bring home a friend
with him. He would not tell us who it was. "Nobody you know," he said.
So we did as we were told, and asked no questions.

The friend was one that we had never seen before. He was a little
bit of a man, with a soft smooth manner of speaking, and grey eyes
that had a sharp trick of seeing everything and yet that never looked
anybody straight in the face. He had a smart ring on his little finger,
and studs that looked like big diamonds. Mother thought him "quite a
gentleman," and was as proud as could be to have him at her table. But
grannie laughed when mother called him so; for grannie had been in good
service when she was young, and she knew well enough the difference
between a gentleman and not a gentleman.

However, it was plain that Mr. Simmons thought himself a grand person,
and counted it a condescension to dine in our cottage. He and father
seemed to know a deal about one another that nobody else knew. I didn't
like the way he nodded and winked at some things that were said between
them. And I liked still less the sort of sneer that came over his face,
when grannie once made mention of the Bible.

After dinner father went off with Mr. Simmons, and did not come back
till late. When he did, he pulled out his purse and said, "It's all
right," and handed mother a five-pound note.

"Has the money come?" asked mother. She was always asking that question.

"No, but it won't be long," father said. "And I've a friend now,
willing to advance whatever we need till it does come."

"What makes him willing to do that, Miles?" says grannie, quite
sharp-like.

"Why, just in a friendly way," said father.

"Is it only in a friendly way?" says grannie. "That's odd, when he
don't know us, and has no particular call to do the kindness. Do you
mean to say he don't look to turn a penny by it?"

"Oh, well,—of course there's the interest," father said carelessly. "A
man couldn't be expected to put himself to inconvenience for nothing at
all."

"How much is the interest?" asked grannie.

"Well, he did speak of fifteen or twenty per cent for small sums, but
that was before we got so friendly together. I don't doubt but he'll
make it lower now. You needn't fidget, grannie. It's a mere song, just
a few pounds and odd shillings."

Grannie waited a minute or two, thinking to herself, and then she said
in a slow sort of way—

"Miles, Mr. Simmons is a bad man."

"Now mother!" said he.

"Mr. Simmons is a bad man," repeated grannie, "and you may take my word
for it."

"That's charity, isn't it?" said father. "A man you've never seen in
your life before, and one as is just doing me a good turn."

"I don't want to be uncharitable," grannie said. "But I know a bad man
when I see him, and he's one. And he'll get you into trouble, as sure
as you have to do with him."

"I'm not a boy to be lectured, mother," says he very short. "I hope I'm
of an age to choose my own friends, and not be meddled with. I can tell
you Simmons is a clever fellow and no mistake. Dear me, I don't know
what there is he don't know."

"That may be," grannie said. "But cleverness isn't goodness. I wish it
was. The world would be a better world than it is."

And then she dropped the subject, and said no more. That was always her
way. She spoke out where she counted it right, but she didn't go on
bothering where her words had no power.

Mother was so pleased to have her five-pound note, that she seemed
to care very little for what was being said. She went off that same
afternoon, and got some new roses for her bonnet, and a smart ribbon,
and a big brooch. Father laughed when he saw them, and said he had
meant the money for the butcher and baker and milkman, for we had
been having things on credit since he left off work; but he went on
to add that it didn't matter, for there was plenty more. And next day
he brought another five-pound note, and gave it to grannie, and told
mother to do what she liked with the other. Every penny of it went in
dress. Grannie said to herself, "It's a sort of madness;" but I do not
think she meant me to hear.

Another three or four months went by, and still the money did not come.
More five-pound notes followed the first, and money had to be borrowed
fur the rent of the new house, as well as for our every-day expenses.
Mother said one day that she could not see why we should not go into
it straight off, and get rid of the old cottage. What was the good
of waiting? she asked. It would not cost us much more to live in the
house than in the cottage. Perhaps there was some truth in this as we
were now living; for father was getting to be very particular about
having the best of everything at table; and he and mother seemed quite
careless how many bills they ran up.

Grannie said nothing, only she went very white again. But father took
up the notion at once. He said it was folly to be keeping up two homes,
and the quicker we moved the better. So the bills were run up higher
still, in getting lots of new things to make the other house quite
ready; for mother was set on having all "genteel," as she said. It was
settled that we were to get in before Christmas Day, and father began
trying to find somebody to buy the cottage.

Grannie was very loth to have the cottage sold. She stood out for
awhile, and it could not be done without her consent. She wanted it
to be only let; so that it might be ours still, if we ever wanted
it again. But father was very much vexed, for he wanted the ready
money; and he told her she always thwarted him in everything, and
he threatened to go and borrow a hundred pounds right away from Mr.
Simmons. Grannie gave in at last, but how she did cry! I think she and
I both hoped father would not succeed. But he did, for there was a run
upon the place in those days; and he was in such a hurry to get the
matter settled, that he was willing to take less than the real value of
the cottage, on condition that he should have quick payment. It was not
long before he came in and told us that the thing was done.

"Grannie, are you very sorry?" I asked of her that night, when we were
up in our little room, and she sat down in a sort of tired-out way on
the foot of the bed.

"Mayhap I shouldn't be," she said. "It's no real harm for me to have
my heart pulled loose from this world, and set on things higher." And
she began to murmur, in a sort of half-singing voice, which quavered a
little—

    "'My rest is in heaven, my rest is not here;
      Then why should I murmur when trials are near?
      Be hushed, my dark spirit, the worst that can come
      But shortens thy journey, and hastens thee home.'"

"O don't, please, grannie," I said. "I don't want you to think of that."

"I'm always thinking of it," she said. "That's my only home now, Phœbe.
I've no home again in this world. You young things can take to fresh
places easy enough, and it's only right. But I can't. I'm like an old
tree pulled up by the roots. It'll never take kindly to another soil. I
think uprooting means dying in such a case. Not that I'm murmuring, my
dear. One must have trouble. And if it wasn't for the change in Miles,
I could stand other things easier."

"You aren't so very old, grannie," I said. "I wish you wouldn't talk
about dying, please. You work ever so much harder than mother does. And
we'll all be together, and I'll be such a good girl, and I think we
shall be happy. Don't you think so? Won't you try, grannie?" And I know
I looked at her in a beseeching sort of way.

"O yes, I'll try," said she. "I don't doubt but what I'll be happy. I
couldn't be aught else, with the thought of God loving and caring for
me. But it won't be home, Phœbe, my dear."

And I knew she spoke truth, though I tried not to think it.



CHAPTER XI.

GOING HOME.

THE evening came which was to have been our last in the old home,
for the very next day we were to have left it—just one week before
Christmas Day.

It was bitterly cold weather, and grannie seemed to shrink under the
cold, as she had not been used to do. The other house was all furnished
and ready, except just the room for grannie and me, and that was to
have its furniture taken from the cottage on the morrow. Everything
left behind would be sold.

I didn't think the cottage had ever seemed more snug and home-like than
on that day. Snow lay thick on the roof and in the little garden, but
all inside was so cosy. I could not believe we were really going.

Grannie seemed to have upon her a strange dread of the new home, a
strange shrinking from it, as if she were leaving a warm nest, and
going out into the cold and damp. I could not talk her out of the
feeling. She said it was silly, she knew, and she could not account
for it, but she had the dread. And many times that day she said
sorrowfully—"It won't be home, Phœbe. I've no home now on earth. I
didn't think I should ever have to leave the old place." And then she
would add—"But it is God's will, and I mustn't grumble. What does it
matter? There's a better Home above."

She was very tired in the evening, with a sort of pinched blue look in
her face, which I hadn't ever seen there before. Father noticed it, and
he said she had done too much, and he made her sit in the arm-chair,
and was quite nice and kind to her. I think she found that a comfort.
Mother was rushing about everywhere, making believe to be busy, though
really not doing much, for there was not much to be done. Grannie had
put everything into beautiful order for the move.

"Miles," grannie said, all of a sudden—"I'm wondering if you'll do
something to please your old mother."

"To be sure I will," said he, for he was in great good humour that day.
"What is it? Something new you want? Sue buys lots of things, and you
don't spend a penny on yourself."

"I've enough and to spare," she said. "I'll wait till the pennies come
before I spend 'em, my dear. No need for more borrowing and buying than
goes on already. I hope it isn't all a mistake, Miles."

"Mistake!—no," says he. "There's no mistake about the five thousand
pounds. That's sure enough."

"So you may think—so you and me may think," said she, in a dreamy sort
of way. "But who knows? Riches take wings and fly away."

"Mine shan't," father said. "I'll take right good care to hold my own
fast. Money don't fly away if it isn't thrown away, I take it. But what
did you want me to get for you?"

"It wasn't anything I wanted you to get," she said.

"Because I don't mind what it is," said he. "I can afford it, you know.
Only I'd have you use what I get, not lay it by like that black dress,
you know."

"Ah—that dress," says she softly. "I'm glad it's black. Yes, it'll
do—for Sue."

Father stared, and she gave him a little smile.

"I was only a-thinking," she said. "But the thing I want you to do
isn't buying, Miles. You haven't been often to Church of late, and it's
getting seldomer and seldomer. Will you promise me to go regular when
we get into the new home?"

"Why—I am regular," says he. "I don't stay away without there's good
reason."

"Reason maybe, but not good reason," says she. "Pleasuring's no good
reason for leaving the worship of God. You said you'd do what I was
going to ask you, Miles."

"O well—yes—we'll see," said he. "I didn't know what it was."

"But now you do know," she said, "you're not going to say 'No' to me?"

"We'll see," was all he would answer.

"I'm going to bed early," she said. "I feel out of sorts somehow, and
I've a queer sort of weakness on me. But it's our last night in the old
home. I should like to finish off the life here with Bible-reading and
prayer. It's an old woman's fancy you'll say, Miles, but I should."

"What for?" asked mother, who had come in and was listening.

"It's fitting," grannie said. "God's blessing has been on us here, and
He has cared for us; and we'd ought to thank Him, and ask for the same
in the new home too."

"Well, I'm busy just now," mother said, and she went off quick and
didn't come back.

But father got up, and brought the big Bible to grannie. "I'm not
religious like you, mother," he said; "but you shall have your will—if
it's a pleasure. Only it's you that must do it, not I."

She didn't press him for more. She just turned over the leaves, and
found the 103rd Psalm, and read it aloud. And I couldn't help noticing
how her dear face grew bright, with a sort of inward glow, as if God
Himself was speaking to her heart.

"It's full of mercy and loving-kindness—full—full," she said at the
end. "Miles, I'd give anything—"

"What for, mother?" said he, and his voice was husky.

"If you'd be willing to have God for such a Friend as He's been to me,"
said she.

And then she made us kneel down—father and Asaph and me, and she
prayed. How she did pray, thanking God, and asking Him to keep us from
dangers, and speaking the Name of Jesus so lovingly, and seeming just
as if she had Someone just close beside her, listening! And hadn't she?

But all at once she stopped, and then went on, and stopped again, and
seemed confused. And then she said "Phœbe." And the next moment she
fell down heavily, all in a heap, with no life in her, as it were.

Father carried her upstairs, and put her on her bed; and mother cried
and was frightened. And all we could do, she would not come to herself.
At first we only thought she was knocked up and faint, but presently we
began to see that things were worse, and father went off for the doctor.

When the doctor came, he said grannie was very ill indeed, and could
not possibly be moved next day. He said it must have been coming on for
some days, and he told us pretty plainly that he did not believe she
would get over it. "She's an old woman, you know," he said.

I did not half know what he meant. It seemed too dreadful to think of
grannie dying. I never knew till then how much I loved her.

I had a busy enough life the next week, what with nursing and work. I
couldn't bear to leave grannie, yet mother expected me to do all that I
commonly did and attend to grannie too. Our move had to be put off, of
course, and mother was vexed. She did not believe that grannie was so
bad as the doctor said. Father was very anxious, and he stayed a great
deal at home, and often sat with grannie. But she did not know him or
any of us.

Things went on so up to Christmas Eve. And then there was just a little
glimmer of sense. She seemed to look at me, and I heard her say, "Home!
going Home!"

"Perhaps not just yet, grannie," I said. But she smiled again, in a
sort of eager way. She had pretty nearly lost the power of speech, yet
she managed to say again, "Going Home—Home, Phœbe."

And that was all. She looked peaceful, and we thought her better. Mr.
Scott came to see her a little later, but she had dropped into a sleep,
and from that sleep she never woke. Nobody could tell the moment when
she died, she went so quietly.

It was a sad Christmas for us all, and saddest of all, I think, for
me; for I had been more her child than mother's, and she had taught
me everything, and I seemed to feel as if I didn't know how to live
without her.

Father was miserable, for he had loved her dearly. It was only of late
that he had ever said a sharp word to her, and I suppose those sharp
words came back now and troubled him. And he had no real comfort like
me; so after all he was the worst off. For I could think of grannie
in her happy Home, with the Lord Jesus and the bright angels, singing
songs to God; but father could only think about his own loss. He did
not care to think about Heaven, and he only felt very wretched. And
the day after grannie's death, he did what he had never never done
before—stayed ever so long at the public-house drinking, and came back
the worse for what he had taken.



CHAPTER XII.

AT LAST.

THE day before the New Year grannie's body was laid to rest in the
green churchyard. But grannie herself was not there. I used to think of
how she was singing, away in her heavenly home, and that was the only
comfort I had in my great sorrow.

The next day we went into our other house, to begin our new life. And a
new life indeed it was without grannie, much more new on that account
than because we had a fresh roof over our heads.

Father seemed greatly ashamed of himself, for having gone to the
public-house that evening, and having been enticed to take too much. It
did really seem for a little while as if grannie's death was to work
good to him; for he would not go near the public-house, and he tried
to keep out of the way of Mr. Simmons, and he attended Church quite
regularly, like in old days.

But this did not last. Mother's influence was all a pull in the other
direction, and grannie was gone, and I was but a child. And by-and-by
father wanted more ready money, and he went again to Mr. Simmons,
and after that the two were often to be seen together. Then the
Church-going began to drop off again, and if I said a word about it
father told me not to bother him, and he seemed never to like to speak
about grannie.

Things were like this when the money came. For it came at last; close
upon a year after old Morison's death. Not full five thousand pounds,
though; for there was "legacy-duty" to be taken out of it, and that
made a difference. And there were bills to be paid, and loans to be
returned. Father and mother didn't like half so well paying the bills,
as they had liked choosing things beforehand. And I am pretty certain
Mr. Simmons must have made a nice sum for himself out of the lendings.
He did not abate one penny of interest for the sake of friendship, as
father had thought he would do; and father was so angry that he sheered
off, and would have nothing to do with Mr. Simmons for a while. But he
got over this feeling—more's the pity.

It is astonishing how the bills had run up—bills for food, and
furniture, and dress, and all sorts of things. It was quite startling
to us all. Father was very vexed, and he told mother it was all her
doing, which made her cry. However, he finished off by saying that he
didn't mean to be content with less than four hundred a year, but on
four hundred he thought we might do grandly. So of course we might have
done, if we had known how. But mother was comforted, and dried her
tears, and neither seemed to care any longer.

I don't know who it was that father went to for advice about investing
the money. I am quite sure it was neither Mr. Scott nor Mr. Carver, and
just then father had quarrelled with Mr. Simmons; so it must have been
somebody else. He told us he was to have near upon four hundred a year,
and he seemed to think that would do anything.

The next step was that mother wanted Asaph to go to school, and to
learn, as she said, "to be a gentleman." She chose a school where the
terms were high, but neither she nor father minded that; only father
said he did not see why I was not to go to school too. Mother said I
was too old, and she wanted me in the house to help. Father gave in,
and did not seem much to care, which disappointed me, for I should have
liked school. Grannie had taught me to love books, and I always longed
for more learning. I had to be content without, though, at that time.

A girl was hired, to work under me, and things were left pretty much in
my hands, except that I never knew when mother would or would not give
orders just opposite to what I had planned. It was well I had learnt to
cook, for father was growing very particular in his eating, and mother
gave no help, and the girl was idle and ignorant. There was no making
her do things. After a while the girl was sent away, and an older
servant was got in her place. She knew better what she was about, but
she pleased herself as to what she did, and she was not at all a nice
woman.

I missed grannie sorely those days. There was no one any longer to
speak loving words to me; and there's nothing one misses like loving
words, when one is used to them. Mother had never cared for me; and
father was always grumbling.

Some days the weight on me seemed more than I could bear. There was no
rule or order in the house; and how could there be? Mother took no heed
to her duties as mistress; and the servant would not do as I wished.
Everything was left to me, and I was blamed if things went wrong, and
yet I had no power to make them go right.

I did so long for grannie back again. Life seemed dreary and sad
without her. I remember one day meeting Mr. Scott, and his stopping
to talk to me. He said so kindly, "Ah, it's a sad loss for you, poor
girl!" And when I could not help crying, he took my hand and said, "But
there is another Friend always at hand."

"But it does not seem as if I could be good without grannie," I said.
"And I can't keep things straight. Nothing goes right now."

"She was one to help others," he said. "But there is nothing like
looking to the Master Himself, Phœbe. Perhaps you didn't do that while
you had her."

No; I did not, and I said so. I had always looked to grannie.

"I don't say that is why she was taken," he said. "I think God took her
because He wanted her with Him in heaven. But now she is gone, I am
quite sure He does want you to learn that lesson. Why should you not?"

"I don't seem to know how," I said, sobbing.

"Try—just try," he said. "Your grandmother was always near you, and
always ready to help you. But there is One still more near, and still
more ready. You turned to the one in every trouble; now turn to the
Other just in the same way. And don't fear to trouble Him. Nothing that
you care for is too small to pray about."

And then he said, "Your father has not been to Church lately."

"No," I said, and I blushed for him. "I can't get him to go, and he
won't let me speak."

"Or your mother?"

"Mother doesn't seem to care," I said, and I hung my head.

"Don't let them keep you from God's House," he said.

"I do go in the evening," I answered. "Mother wants me at home all the
morning. Father likes a hot dinner, and if I didn't see to it things
wouldn't be right for him. Grannie never would do it, but mother makes
me now."

"You are but a child," he said. "If they desire it, your duty may be
for the present to yield. But if it is not needful, they ought to let
you go. Some day I will call and perhaps speak about it."

And he did so, very kindly, but it wasn't of much use. Mother was
angry, and after he was gone she said she would not be meddled with,
and I was to do as she and father liked.



CHAPTER XIII.

A DAMP DWELLING.

ONE gets used, more or less, to almost any sort of state; and by the
time we had been seven or eight months in the house, I remember how
things looked quite natural, and the old life in the cottage seemed
almost like a dream to me. I don't know whether it did to the others. I
am not saying that I liked the new life, or would have chosen it: but
there it was, and one had to go through with it.

We had a great deal of pleasuring that summer. Everybody was very
friendly; and I must say this for father, that having more money did
not make him want to throw off old acquaintances, as some in his place
might have done. It turned his head enough, but not in that way.

Father did not take to work again, and it is quite certain he was none
the happier for being idle. It wasn't as if he had anything else to
take the place of what he was used to do. I never saw any man change
as he changed, month by month. The old brisk ways and pleasant look
quite disappeared, and in their stead came a slouching sort of manner,
and a lazy discontented expression. He was always grumbling and never
satisfied; and he went to bed early, and got up late, and did not seem
to know what to do with himself when he was up: and as for eating and
drinking, they were getting to be the chief business of his life. I
hope it isn't unkind to write all this, for how could I help seeing it?
Mother fretted sometimes about the change in him, though she dearly
liked being able to wear smart caps and dresses, and to show off before
the neighbours how much money we had. She and Mrs. Raikes got into a
sort of race, as it were, to see which should be the smartest. Each
wanted to have the best parlour and the gayest clothes. Father laughed
sometimes in a gruff sort of way, and said it was "folly," but he did
not check it.

So for many months things went pretty smoothly. I had a sort of
feeling, girl as I was, that all was not right: and yet I could
not have told why, or have said where the wrong lay. Money seemed
plentiful; or, if at times father ran short, he told us just to order
things at the shops, and "next week" he would "make all square." I used
to see mother getting all sorts of things for herself and Asaph and the
house, but she seldom took me with her to the shops, and I could not
tell what was paid for and what was not.

With the coming of autumn there seemed to come a dawning of trouble.
The last half of the winter before had been very mild and very dry—two
things not often seen together in an English winter—and we had not felt
the dampness of our new house so as to be really inconvenienced. But
this second winter came in quite differently. From very early autumn
we had heavy rains, and cold winds, and sharp frosts, taking turns one
with another. Water seemed to ooze in everywhere throughout the house,
and rooms were damp, and cold could not be kept out.

Mother was the first to suffer. She had a desperately bad cold, which
she could not shake off, and it came back again and again. She was
very low-spirited about herself, and she said the clamp of the house
was killing her. She wanted father to have workmen in to put it all to
rights. Father answered her quite roughly, and said he had no money
to waste on such rubbish. That was the first time I heard him talk of
being short of money.

Mother's cough grew worse, and the doctor had to be called in. He
thought her in a bad way, and he said so pretty plainly, to mother's
great terror. I don't know whether father would have taken warning then
or not, but all at once he had a chill himself, and bad rheumatism came
on in his back and arms, so sharp as well-nigh to cripple him for the
time.

Father had not thought so much of mother's cough, but he thought a good
deal of his own rheumatism, and he sent for the workmen in a hurry. A
pretty mess they made, and a long while they were, opening walls, and
pulling up flooring, and laying down pipes. And after all, the mischief
was not cured. The very week after we got rid of them we had a day of
pelting rain, and almost every wall in the house was running down again
with damp. Mother could not sleep at night for her cough, and father
was worse than before.

So the workmen came back, and I suppose they did their best; but the
best was not much. Father said it was a downright badly built house,
and he took to blaming mother for making him take it. Mother would
cry and defend herself, and there was quite a bickering. Father had
never been used to bicker in old days, but we had enough of it now. He
was so often vexed and peevish that we did not know what to do with
him—partly, perhaps, with the pain of his rheumatism, and partly with
having nothing to do.

Mother found that an extra glass of beer sometimes made him more
good-humoured for a little while, and she took to giving it him now and
then. It was not her way to see dangers ahead, and father was easily
persuaded. I did beg her not, but she said there was no harm, and she
would not listen to me. It grew to be quite a common thing, when he was
kept indoors by his rheumatism, to see him sitting with the tankard
by his side, between meals. Mother never seemed to think that she was
doing the Tempter's work. She just wanted to have things easy, and not
to have him scolding her.

Christmas came, and I found it hard to believe that only one year had
gone by since grannie's death. The time seemed so very much longer, and
the months between had been so dreary.

And yet they were not altogether dreary. For it had been with me as Mr.
Scott said,—the very fact that I had not grannie to look to had made me
look more to God. I suppose that if she had lived I should just have
gone on leaning upon her, instead of leaning upon God. I did feel this
Christmas that I had got on in the twelve months past,—that I seemed to
know Christ more as my own Saviour, and that I cared more for doing His
will, and that prayer was more of a needs-be in my life, or at least
that I had learnt it to be so, and that my Bible was more dear to me.
And it was not so hard, as once it had been, to keep from jealousy of
Asaph and from impatience with others.

So Christmas came and passed away, and after Christmas the weather
became fine and dry, and father and mother both seemed better in
health. Father sat less indoors with his ale beside him; but I was
afraid things were not really any more as they should have been. He
found his way to the public-house oftener than he had ever been used
to do; and sometimes he came home with a look in his face which I had
seen, and shrunk from, many a time in other men.



CHAPTER XIV.

CHRISTMAS.

CHRISTMAS bills came dropping in thick and fast that year. I had not
looked for so many; neither, I am sure, had father and mother. It is so
easy to order in a lot of things, each costing little enough by itself,
without in the least knowing how much they will come to altogether.

Father began to get vexed, and to say, "What! another!" and a black
look would come into his face. And sometimes he would stamp his foot
and say, "Here's more of your extravagance, Sue! You'll ruin us all at
this rate." And when mother said, "Why, Miles, what's a few shillings
to us now? You've plenty of money!" he made answer. "Oh, have I though?
I know better!" So I could see things were not all going straight.

From that time father made a sudden change in his way of speaking.
Instead of always saying, as he had been used to do of late, "There's
money enough,—never fear!" or "Do as you like,—thank goodness, I can
afford it!" he twisted right round the other way, and was for ever
repeating, "Can't afford this;" and "Can't afford that;" till mother
declared we might just as well never have had the five thousand pounds
at all. Not that I mean to say we really began even then to be careful.
Father wouldn't have any difference made at dinner, for instance. He
was never content without the best of everything there. And it seemed
to me that whatever he wanted he got, and whatever mother wanted she
got too,—only he said often that he could not afford things.

As for all the bills they were put into a drawer and just left alone
there, as if they might be expected to pay themselves. But this of
course could not go on. By-and-by they began to come in a second time,
and father was spoken to by one tradesman and another in a way that
he did not find pleasant. So, though he had begun of late to dislike
any sort of work, and to find everything a trouble, except smoking and
lounging about, he did at last actually look through the whole pile,
and find out what they all came to, added up together.

Neither he nor mother had had before then any notion of how the prices
of small things mount up. Mother was always saying, "Oh, it's only a
shilling;" or, "It's only a half-crown;" or, "What's five shillings out
of four hundred pounds?" And father and she had had no sort of steady
plan in their spending, but had just got anything here and there as
they felt inclined.

But four hundred a year will not buy everything,—no, nor four thousand
either. And it seems to me that the question of being poor or rich
don't so much hang on what a man has, as on what a man wants. He that
has one hundred a year of money, and has wants that can be satisfied
on ninety a year, is rich; and he that has five thousand a year, with
wants that can only be satisfied on six thousand, is poor. I think we
were poorer in our new home than we had been in the little cottage.

A good many bills had been allowed, the last Midsummer, to stand over
till Michaelmas; and a good many more had been allowed to stand over
till Christmas. It was no wonder that the tradespeople were getting
impatient at last.

But I did not know how bad things were, till that day when I came into
the parlour, and found mother crying. I had been helping to cook, and
my hands were all floury. Mother often cried at little things, but this
was something worse than common. I knew it in a moment from her face.

"What's wrong, mother?" I asked, and I shook the flour from my hands
and came close to her.

"Matter enough," said she. "But it don't signify. You won't understand."

"Maybe I should," I said. "I am not a child now, you know."

"Aren't you?" she said, and she looked at me. "No, you are getting
tall, to be sure. You're taller than me." And then she burst out crying
afresh. "O Phœbe!" said she,—"father's been so awfully angry."

"What about, mother?" I asked.

"Why, about everything," said she, sobbing. "About everything, Phœbe.
He says I'm ruining him, and it's all my fault if we can't pay our
way, and he says I'm just worth nothing at all. I wonder whatever poor
father would have said to hear him,—poor father as used to dote on me
so. And I'm sure, if I have spent money, wasn't it Miles himself that
told me to get whatever I liked? And now to have him turn on me like
this."

"But what made father angry to-day?" I asked.

"Why, it's nothing at all," said she. "He's only just been looking at
the bills. He said he'd see how much it was altogether, and it came to
more than he looked to find. He did get in a fury. It made me feel so
fluttery-like, I don't seem to have got over it yet, and my heart beats
like anything. And it isn't my fault. I didn't know there were so many
things not paid for. He was always telling me he hadn't got money in
hand, so I could have things put down to him at the shops."

"How much is it altogether, mother?" I asked.

"I can't tell you," said she. "He frightened me so, I didn't half know
what he was saying. He stamped at me as if he was mad. I don't know
whatever I shall do. He isn't a bit like what he used to be. I always
did say I had one of the kindest of husbands, and now he has never a
pleasant word for anybody. I don't believe he cares for a single person
in the world, so long as he gets what he wants for himself."

"Oh, I think he cares, mother," I said,—"only he doesn't know what to
do about the bills."

"And I'm sure I don't know," said she fretfully,—"so it's no use his
bothering me. I suppose they'll have to wait: for he says he's got
nothing to pay them with. I almost wish the money had never come to us
at all, if things are going to be miserable like this."

"Mother, I think it must be as grannie said," I half whispered. "We
didn't all ask God's blessing with it."

"Oh, I don't know as to that," said she. "It's father's way of going on
that makes things miserable. And he says he won't have me buy nothing
again for ever so long,—and how I can manage—"

"I think you'll be able, mother, for you've got lots of things," I
said; "I'll try to help you. I do wish father would have plainer
dinners, for we spend a deal on eating."

And while we were speaking father walked in. He had a red and angry
look still, and mother shrank away from him as if she was frightened.

"So you're talking it all over, are you?" says he roughly. "Now mind,
Phœbe,—you're a sensible girl, and I look to you. If we go on another
six months as we've been doing, I shall be ruined outright. D'you hear?
We shall be ruined, stock and stone. D'you understand?"

Yes, I did; but I didn't see the need for him to shout at us like that.
Words are strong enough, spoken quietly. But men often seem to think
women can't be frightened into behaving themselves, without they're
hallooed at.

"You've brought me into a pretty pickle, as it is," says he, looking at
mother. "Why, my whole year's income, if I had it this moment, wouldn't
do more than set us straight, and not a penny left for the year to
come."

"Father, what are you going to do?" I made bold to ask. "Are the bills
to be left unpaid?"—and I did not like the thought.

"No," said he gruffly. "There's some won't wait. I'll have to borrow.
It's lucky I have a friend like Mr. Simmons."

"Oh, not Mr. Simmons, father!" said I.

"And why not?" says he.

I couldn't tell why. I could only say,—"I don't like him,—and grannie
didn't either."

"Don't be a goose, Phœbe," said he. "Don't like him! What does that
matter? I'm not asking you to like him. He'll lend me money to get over
this, and that's all I want."

"Father," said I, "couldn't we begin to spend less, some way or other?
If we were to have only a girl in the house, as we had at first—I'd
work hard with her."

But mother said, "O no! Mrs. Raikes doesn't do with a girl." And father
said, "Don't you meddle." So that shut my mouth.



CHAPTER XV.

TROUBLE.

So father borrowed from Mr. Simmons, and paid off the bills owing, and
everything seemed straight again—only of course there was the interest
to be paid to Mr. Simmons, making our income smaller.

I did think father and mother would learn wisdom from the past, but it
was not so. Almost as soon as ever the thing was settled, father seemed
to forget his anger, and mother seemed to forget her fear, and both
went on just in the old way. I had no power, girl as I was, to check
them. How should I have had? I saw things wrong, without the means of
setting them right.

Months again went by—I do not know how many, for my memory is not quite
cleat as to dates, but I know that as spring and summer passed we were
getting afresh deeper and deeper into debt. I know that again and again
father borrowed from Mr. Simmons, always at the same heavy rate of
interest, and I know that the payment of this interest was becoming
more and more of a drag upon us. Father never seemed to have money in
hand for anything. He used to say, "Tell them to put it down to me, and
I'll set it right next week."

But the tradespeople were gradually becoming a little shy of putting
things down to father's name. I think it is likely they knew more than
we did how father was going on, and how likely it was they might never
get their money at all. Once when I wanted it done I was refused point
blank, and when I told father he was quite in a fury. He said he should
go to the shop and give them his mind; but I suppose he thought better
of this, for he did not go. I found in time that there were a good many
shops which father did not like to go near, and they were shops where
he had heavy bills unpaid.

But still he and mother never drew in. It was always, "Oh, we must have
this," "Oh, we can't do without that."

Father and Mr. Simmons were a great deal together. Father had nothing
to do, and time often hung heavily on his hands; and yet he had taken
such a hatred to work that he never would hear a word of doing any. But
of course a man cannot spend his life in doing nothing, and so it came
to pass that Mr. Simmons took to finding amusement for him. There were
not many things that father could do, but he began to be more and more
at the public-house and billiard-room.

Indeed, as months went by, we saw less and less of father. He was
always with Mr. Simmons, and seldom came home except to dine and sleep.
I think Mr. Simmons had the sort of mastery over him that a strong mind
has over a weak one. Now and then they came in together, and I used to
think of grannie's dread of Mr. Simmons, when I saw his smooth silky
manners, and the sort of way in which he managed father, and made him
do and say and even think just what he liked. But I could not venture
on a word. Mother always seemed pleased to see Mr. Simmons. She did not
in the least understand the harm he was doing.

Father had quite left off going to Church, and mother was seldom to be
seen there either. They often laughed at me for being so regular, but
I am thankful to say I never was even tempted to give it up. My chief
comfort those days was in religion. I had nothing else. It was a life
of hard slaving, with no love to cheer me in my work. Father was never
satisfied, whatever I did.

It was through Mrs. Raikes that the whisper of how things really
were first reached mother and me. She and mother were always trying
still which could outdo the other, and they were in a sort of way at
daggers drawn, if one may use the expression, though they didn't call
themselves enemies.

Mrs. Raikes came in one day to see mother, with a fine wreath of red
roses in her bonnet, which she had just bought—bigger and redder than
one which mother had bought the week before. I suppose she came to show
it off. I remember how her eyes spied all about our parlour, to see if
there was anything in it new which she had not in hers. I wonder if I
am uncharitable to write so. I know I am only saying simple truth; for
she and mother used to boast and quarrel quite openly about which could
be the smartest.

"Well," said she, "and what do you think of your husband being so
mighty thick, as he has become of late, with that fellow Simmons?"

"Oh, Mr. Simmons and he are friends," mother said, tossing her head,
"and I don't see why they shouldn't be, either. Mr. Simmons is an
uncommon pleasant-spoken gentleman, and he's uncommon fond of my
husband."

"Sooner your husband than mine," said Mrs. Raikes, and she gave a
snort. "Raikes says to me once upon a time, says he, 'I'll bring
Simmons home with me to dinner,' says he; 'I've met him, and I don't
dislike him.' 'No, thank you,' says I; 'not if I knows it, Raikes. A
mean sneaking cheat, as 'ud worm a secret out of a toad in a stone, and
flay a man alive for sixpence. Not if I knows it,' says I. 'Why dear
me, Kitty,' says he, 'whatever do you know of him?' 'Oh, you trust me,'
says I; 'I've eyes and ears, I hope; and I know how to use 'em, too. No
Simmons for me, if you please.' And Raikes he just laughed and didn't
say another word. Oh, everybody knows what Simmons is at. And if you're
not above taking a bit of friendly advice as it's meant, Mrs. Murdock,
you'll do your best to get your husband out of his clutches."

It wasn't very likely, I suppose, that mother should be grateful for
the advice, under the circumstances.

"I'm much obliged all the same," said she with another toss of her
head. "I'm very much obliged all the same. But I hope my husband is
free to choose his friends for himself, Mrs. Raikes. I'm not one of the
wives that tyrannise over their husbands, like some. I'd scorn to have
it said of Miles that he was a henpecked man. If it pleases him to make
Mr. Simmons his friend, I'm very well pleased, and that's all about it."

"Well, I hope it may be all right," Mrs. Raikes answered. "I hope there
mayn't be a deal to follow after, of a sort that won't be equally
agreeable to you, Mrs. Murdock. Mr. Simmons is smooth-spoken enough,
there's no denying; and he's clever at hiding his claws, there's no
denying either. But when it comes to him and your husband—why, dear me,
you don't suppose he'd ever have condescended to look at your husband,
if it wasn't for the five thousand pounds."

"Maybe not," mother said shortly. "It does make a difference in our
position, Mrs. Raikes, and everybody knows that."

"Oh, as for position, I'm not so sure," Mrs. Raikes said with a sniff.
"A man's born one thing or another, and I don't see as a fuller purse
alters him. But Mr. Simmons knows the worth of money, they say, and I
don't doubt he'll make a paying business out of his friendship with
your husband."

"I'm not at all afraid," says mother.

"Well, if folks won't take warning, they must be let to go on in their
own way," said Mrs. Raikes. "I'm thankful it isn't my husband as spends
his days gambling and drinking with Simmons. But if you're content, why
it's no concern of mine."

"My husband don't gamble nor drink neither—much obliged all the same,"
says mother, getting very red.

"Oh, as for that, it's known to all the world, and anybody you like to
ask'll say the same," Mrs. Raikes answered. "But I've no wish to vex
you. It isn't my business. Only Raikes, he says to me this morning,
'That fellow Simmons will fleece Murdock of every penny he has,' says
he. 'Couldn't you just give his poor wife a word of warning?' says
he. And I says to him, 'I don't know as I dare, for she'll be out on
me like a wild cat if I say a word; but maybe I'll try.' And now I've
delivered my conscience, Mrs. Murdock, and I'd best say no more; only
it's true enough all I've told you, and more's the pity."

And, when Mrs. Raikes was gone, how mother did cry! I never saw her cry
so before. She wasn't afraid of many things that would frighten another
wife; but she had a horror and dread of gambling, for she had seen the
dreadful evil of it in her girlhood with a brother of her own.



CHAPTER XVI.

SCENES.

THAT very evening, strange to say, father came home the worse for
drink. I had never seen him so bad, except the one night after
grannie's death.

Somebody brought him to the door, and pushed him in and went away. I
was almost sure it was Mr. Simmons, but I could not quite see in the
dark, and he did not answer when I spoke.

I had to help father along the passage, and into the parlour; for he
staggered and stumbled, and could not walk steadily. It was dreadful to
me to have to do this. Such a feeling of shrinking and loathing came up
in my heart, that I was frightened at myself. For it was my father—the
father whom I had once loved so much, and who had been so good to us
all. O what a change! To put himself down lower than a brute! All this
was in my mind, as he came along, clutching at me for support, with his
blood-shot eyes telling their tale.

And he was my own father. Such a great agony seemed to come up in my
heart, that I felt as if I must rush away, and never see him again. But
mother looked so frightened, standing apart, that I could not leave her.

"Phœbe! why, Phœbe, he has been drinking," she said quite loud. I
wanted to silence her, but she said it again, and father heard. He had
sense enough to understand, and he spoke angrily, using bad words, with
his thick utterance.

It was no time for finding fault, but poor mother never was very wise
in that way, and what was in her head came out at her lips. She burst
into tears, and said, "Then it's all true, what Mrs. Raikes said; and
he's been gambling too, I don't doubt. O Phœbe, Phœbe! what shall we
do?" and she clung to me, as if for help; and I, poor helpless child
that I was, with sobs half choking me, though I kept them down, did not
know what to do.

Father heard the words, and he asked fiercely what they meant. Mother
would not listen to me, when I begged her not to speak. She repeated
what Mrs. Raikes had said, and then she told him he made her miserable,
and was breaking her heart with his ways. She almost screamed out the
words between her sobs, and father shouted back at her in a rage,
though he could scarcely speak so as to be understood. It was a sad and
grievous scene. Many and many a time I have envied those children who
are so happy as not to know what it is to feel shame at their parents'
actions.

I think I was praying in my heart, and a sort of calm seemed to come
over me. I thought of what grannie would have done in my place. And
I went to mother, and told her she must please not say another word,
she must wait till next day. She left off then, and I told father he
must go to bed. He stared at me, and then he went. I had to help him
upstairs, and I thought we should never reach the top. He threw himself
down all across the bed, with his clothes and boots on, and was asleep
directly.

Mother would not go near him She came to my room, and crept into the
bed with me. Neither of us could sleep much. I was very unhappy and
cried a great deal; and yet I had a sort of pleasure in the thought
that mother seemed to cling to me for help, in a way she had never done
before.

The next day father was ill and miserable. He came downstairs late, and
would take no breakfast, and sat crouching over the fire, and looked
nobody in the face. Mother would not speak to him. It was a sad change
from what our home had once been, and oh, I did feel thankful that dear
grannie had not lived to see it.

Father got up after a while, and began to move off in a kind of
slouching way. Mother spoke then. She called out in a sharp shrill
voice which quite startled me, "Are you going back to your gambling?"

"Who told you I gambled?" said he angrily.

"Mrs. Raikes did," mother said. "And about your drinking too. I didn't
believe neither; but now one's true, I suppose the other is true
too. You'll just bring us all to the workhouse by-and-by, and that's
what it'll be. That's how it is you never have a penny to spare for
anybody's wants."

"Nor for squandering about your gewgaws of finery," growled he.

"A few shillings is nothing," said she. "But I know what it is, when a
man takes to gambling. Haven't I seen it? And Mrs. Raikes says that man
Simmons will fleece you of every penny; and I believe it too."

"Mrs. Raikes may attend to her own concerns," father said roughly.

"It's my concern too, though," mother said. "I should like to know how
much you owe to Mr. Simmons."

"More than I'm like to be able to pay," father said in a sullen tone.
"And I'd advise you to do nought to offend him, or he'll be down on us
pretty sharp."

"Oh, that's the sort of friendship is it?" said she scornfully. "That's
all it is worth. If I was you, I'd pay him back, and get rid of him,
and never see him no more."

"O yes, you women are uncommon wise," said he, with a sneer. "A nice
lot of finery you'd be able to get yourself, if I did that."

"Mother would sooner do without the finery, and have you free from Mr.
Simmons," I said. "Wouldn't you, mother?"

"Yes, I would," said she.

Father went off without another word, and mother and I talked things
over together. She seemed to find it a comfort, and I think she was at
last willing to be careful, and to spend less on herself. But if father
was really gambling away money to Mr. Simmons, nothing we could do
would stop him.

So for the second time father had come home, the worse for drink. The
first and second times had been far apart, but the second and third
were near together, and the third and fourth nearer still; and soon we
knew that it was getting to be a common event.

Things looked sad indeed, as Christmas once more came slowly round.
Mother seemed so shocked and sobered, as to put aside her flightiness
and to want to be different. She clung to me a good deal, and was
willing to do anything I thought best. We sent away the servant, and
had quite a young girl instead; and mother and she and I managed all
between us. If the house had been smaller, we could have done without a
girl even, only I don't think father would have been willing.

Mother was far from strong that winter. The damp tried her again, and
her cough was often very bad.

It was strange to me to see how all this seemed to be taking effect
on her, and how much less she cared about dress and show than she had
done. One Sunday she suddenly said she thought she would go to Church
again, and when she came back she had been crying. After that she
scarcely ever missed going: once each Sunday. And sometimes at night,
when we were waiting and watching for father to come home, she would
let me read the Bible to her.

I was so glad that Asaph was away at school, and I did dread his coming
home at Christmas, and seeing what father was come to. It would be so
terribly bad for him, I thought. But a change came before Christmas,
sudden and unexpected.



CHAPTER XVII.

THE END.

ONE evening, about ten days before Christmas, mother and I were
waiting, as we so often did, for father's return. It was earlier
than he commonly came back, so we did not expect him yet. I had been
reading to mother the fifteenth of John, and she said she did wish she
had cared more for such things. She thought, if she had, she would be
happier. And I said it wasn't too late, for God was always willing to
answer if we asked Him.

And then, all at once, there was a great noise and banging at the front
door. I went out to see what it was, and some men came in, carrying a
helpless body.

I remember shivering with the old feeling of horror and dread, not of
fear. I thought he had taken too much again.

And so he had, but that was not all. He had fallen into a cellar, and
was very much hurt. The men spoke as if they scarcely knew whether he
still breathed.

It was terrible indeed. I called mother, and she shrieked and wrung her
hands and seemed half beside herself. There was no learning particulars
at first. Father was carried upstairs, and laid on the bed, and one of
the men went off for a doctor.

Father lay quite quiet and senseless, not even moaning. Dickenson, our
former neighbour, was one of those who had come, and I took him aside,
and asked how it had all happened.

He could not tell me very much. Partly from what he had seen, and
partly from what had been told him, he knew that father had been with
Mr. Simmons in the billiard-room, and that they had been playing for
money, and that father seemed to lose over and over again and was very
much excited, while Mr. Simmons seemed trying to soothe him. Then the
two went into another room, and drink was called for, and father became
still more excited. He seemed trying to get up a quarrel with Mr.
Simmons, and he said over and over again that Mr. Simmons had ruined
him.

Mr. Simmons kept quite cool all the time, but presently he was seen
to get up and move away, in a sort of stealthy manner, making believe
that he was coming back directly. Father grew quite furious then, and
attacked him with his fists, and others in the room had to come to the
rescue. Mr. Simmons took himself off, by their advice, and seemed not
at all sorry to do so; and father went back to his seat, muttering and
grumbling, and saying "he would be even with him yet."

After a while he got up to go home, and Dickenson, seeing how unsteady
he was, followed some distance behind, not feeling sure that help
mightn't be needed. And so it was. Father had not gone half a street
length, before he seemed to fancy he saw Mr. Simmons ahead. He set up
a sort of shout, and rushed off at a blind pace, and in a moment went
headlong down a kind of open trap-door, with a deep warehouse cellar
below. The marvel was that he escaped death on the spot.

I went back to him, after hearing all this, and waited till the doctor
came. Mother was sobbing and crying and would not stay in the room. I
did not dare to touch father. He lay just as they had put him down,
helpless and senseless. Sometimes I thought he must be already gone.
The men were very good, and would not leave me alone. One was Sykes,
Mr. Johnstone's foreman, and I never shall forget his kindness, as he
tried to cheer me up.

When the doctor came, I was sent away, and there was a long
examination. Mother was sobbing so as to be quite useless, and the
doctor sent for me afterwards, to speak to me.

He said that father was terribly hurt. There were broken bones, but he
feared these were not the worst injuries. He could not say more yet,
however: so he only gave careful directions how I was to manage, and
promised to come again next day.

The next few weeks were just one long bout of nursing. It was wonderful
how good some of our old neighbours were,—those who had been grannie's
friends in earlier days. As for newer friends, who had clustered round
us when the money came, they dropped off like dead leaves from a tree
in autumn.

I don't know what we should have done without help. Mother was such a
poor nurse, and so easily overcome, and also she was in sickly health.
And I was a mere girl, quite unused to illness.

As the weeks passed on, father did not seem really better. The broken
bones were mending, but he lay still like a log, seeming to have no
power in his body and no sense in his mind. At first there was a great
deal of fever, and his thoughts wandered much; but when that passed
off, sense did not come back. He knew nobody clearly, and was like a
little child, having to be fed and cared for every hour.

And at last the doctor told us plainly that it always would be so. He
said he had feared it from the beginning. The injuries to the head and
spine were so great that father could never recover from them. He might
linger on a good many years, but he would be helpless and childish to
the end.

I can see now how this great trouble was sent in mercy to mother and
me, for we were saved by it from greater miseries. But at the time we
could not see things so. When we thought how the accident had happened,
and when we remembered what father had once been, it seemed almost more
than we could bear.

For a long while there was no time to think of anything but the
nursing. Soon, however, it became needful to give attention to
something else. Christmas bills had come in again, and tradespeople
were growing impatient. And when mother and I began to look into the
matter, we found strangely little of the five thousand pounds left.
Father had been selling out capital again and again, unknown to us;
so instead of £400 a year there was not £200, and there were demands
enough to swallow up a good part of what remained. Mr. Simmons had
fleeced poor father indeed; though of course it had not all gone in
that direction.

Mr. Simmons was nowhere to be found. He had gone away a day or two
after the accident, to pay a week's visit to a friend,—so he said.
But though a good many weeks had gone by, he had not returned, and he
never did return. Nobody knew his whereabouts: so we could ask him no
questions about father's affairs.

We let our house as quickly as possible, and we sold out a good part of
what remained of the money, so as to pay off everything. Mother said I
should manage it all my own way, and I could not bear to keep people
waiting longer for their due. I went to kind Mr. Scott, and he helped
me with advice. Then we settled to live in a tiny cottage, much smaller
than our old one, which had a second room on the ground-floor, beside
the kitchen, where father could sleep. There was just enough money left
to keep us going, with great care, and with the help of what we could
earn,—I by charing, and mother by needlework. Asaph came to live at
home, and went to a shop every day as errand boy.

[Illustration: "FATHER NEVER BECAME BETTER."]

These changes were at first a great trouble to mother. Yet in time she
learnt to be thankful that she had not been left to go on in her old
way, caring for nothing but amusing herself. And as for me, I was far
happier in the little cottage than I had been in the house.

Not that there was any harm in our having a nice house and more money,
if God gave them to us. The harm was in taking it all, without a
thought of how to use and spend according to His will.



Father never became better. He lived some years, always in the same
state. He had hardly more sense than a baby, and did not seem to
remember the past. I often said to him texts and easy hymns, but I
never could tell if he understood. He passed away suddenly at last, in
his sleep. Ah,—he was a sad wreck. Things might have been so different
with him!

We three lived on long together in the little cottage, afterwards; and
Asaph grew to be our comfort and stay. The change came only just in
time to save our boy from being quite spoilt. But father's state was
a sharp warning to him. He seemed to become more thoughtful from that
Christmas—and no wonder.



                                THE END.



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