Part 13 (2/2)

”I mention it, father, not as a matter of sentiment, but as a question of keeping faith.”

The timber-merchant's eyes fell for a moment. ”I don't know--I don't know,” he said. ”'Tis a trying strait. Well, well; there's no hurry.

We'll wait and see how he gets on.”

That evening he called her into his room, a snug little apartment behind the large parlor. It had at one time been part of the bakehouse, with the ordinary oval brick oven in the wall; but Mr.

Melbury, in turning it into an office, had built into the cavity an iron safe, which he used for holding his private papers. The door of the safe was now open, and his keys were hanging from it.

”Sit down, Grace, and keep me company,” he said. ”You may amuse yourself by looking over these.” He threw out a heap of papers before her.

”What are they?” she asked.

”Securities of various sorts.” He unfolded them one by one. ”Papers worth so much money each. Now here's a lot of turnpike bonds for one thing. Would you think that each of these pieces of paper is worth two hundred pounds?”

”No, indeed, if you didn't say so.”

”'Tis so, then. Now here are papers of another sort. They are for different sums in the three-per-cents. Now these are Port Breedy Harbor bonds. We have a great stake in that harbor, you know, because I send off timber there. Open the rest at your pleasure. They'll interest ye.”

”Yes, I will, some day,” said she, rising.

”Nonsense, open them now. You ought to learn a little of such matters.

A young lady of education should not be ignorant of money affairs altogether. Suppose you should be left a widow some day, with your husband's t.i.tle-deeds and investments thrown upon your hands--”

”Don't say that, father--t.i.tle-deeds; it sounds so vain!”

”It does not. Come to that, I have t.i.tle-deeds myself. There, that piece of parchment represents houses in Sherton Abbas.”

”Yes, but--” She hesitated, looked at the fire, and went on in a low voice: ”If what has been arranged about me should come to anything, my sphere will be quite a middling one.”

”Your sphere ought not to be middling,” he exclaimed, not in pa.s.sion, but in earnest conviction. ”You said you never felt more at home, more in your element, anywhere than you did that afternoon with Mrs.

Charmond, when she showed you her house and all her knick-knacks, and made you stay to tea so nicely in her drawing-room--surely you did!”

”Yes, I did say so,” admitted Grace.

”Was it true?”

”Yes, I felt so at the time. The feeling is less strong now, perhaps.”

”Ah! Now, though you don't see it, your feeling at the time was the right one, because your mind and body were just in full and fresh cultivation, so that going there with her was like meeting like. Since then you've been biding with us, and have fallen back a little, and so you don't feel your place so strongly. Now, do as I tell ye, and look over these papers and see what you'll be worth some day. For they'll all be yours, you know; who have I got to leave 'em to but you?

Perhaps when your education is backed up by what these papers represent, and that backed up by another such a set and their owner, men such as that fellow was this morning may think you a little more than a buffer's girl.”

So she did as commanded, and opened each of the folded representatives of hard cash that her father put before her. To sow in her heart cravings for social position was obviously his strong desire, though in direct antagonism to a better feeling which had hitherto prevailed with him, and had, indeed, only succ.u.mbed that morning during the ramble.

She wished that she was not his worldly hope; the responsibility of such a position was too great. She had made it for herself mainly by her appearance and attractive behavior to him since her return. ”If I had only come home in a shabby dress, and tried to speak roughly, this might not have happened,” she thought. She deplored less the fact than the sad possibilities that might lie hidden therein.

Her father then insisted upon her looking over his checkbook and reading the counterfoils. This, also, she obediently did, and at last came to two or three which had been drawn to defray some of the late expenses of her clothes, board, and education.

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