Full text of "Tip Cat"
Miss Toose^'s Mission" and "L
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OF CALIFORNIA
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BY THE AUTHOR OF
* MISS TOOSEY'S MISSION" AND "LADDIE."
BOSTON:
ROBERTS BROTHERS.
1884.
In one Volume, Price 75 cents.
MISS TOOSEY'S MISSION
AND
LADDIE.
ROBERTS BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS.^
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CONTENTS.
- CHAPTER I.
PAGE
" The Poor, old Grandfather ! " 5
CHAPTER II.
Reading the Will 17
CHAPTER III.
A Sore Heart 32
CHAPTER IV.
Plans for the Future 40
CHAPTER V.
An Opening 54
CHAPTER VI.
The Last Day in the Old Home 65
CHAPTER VII.
Slowmill 76
CHAPTER VIII.
Tip Cat 88
CHAPTER IX.
The New Life 99
CHAPTER X.
Weekly Bills 109
CHAPTER XI.
Tipton Farm 121
622821
iv CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XII.
Ways and Means ....
CHAPTER XIII.
A Visit to Bristol
CHAPTER XIV.
Notice to Leave ....... . ...... IS 1
CHAPTER XV.
The Flitting ..... : . . . .- ....... l6 3
CHAPTER XVI.
Tea at the Grange .............. i?4
CHAPTER XVII.
Letty's Birthday .............. 194
CHAPTER XVIII.
An Unexpected Meeting ........... 205
CHAPTER XIX.
*' Tip Cat, Remember Your Promise." ....... 217
CHAPTER XX.
To the Rescue .............. 230
CHAPTER XXI.
Poor Dick ................ 241
CHAPTER XXII.
Getting Well . .............. 254'
CHAPTER XXIII.
Dick's Obstinacy .............. 266
CHAPTER XXIV.
" For my Sake." .............. 275
TIP CAT.
CHAPTER I.
" THE POOR, OLD GRANDFATHER ! "
WHEN there was a funeral at a house on the other
side of the street, Letty and Sybil were allowed to
stand at the nursery window, and watch all that went
on, though nurse would not allow them to have the
window open and to lean out, as she and Martha did,
to see it turn the corner into the square, but the
children saw a good deal, and, for weeks after, fun-
erals was their favorite game, and they even per-
suaded nurse to dress the doll Sybil had on her birth-
day as a widow.
So it seemed very hard to the children that when
there was a funeral at their own house, the nursery
blinds were kept closely drawn down, and they were
6 TIP CAT.
not allowed to raise even one little corner to peep
out, though they heard nurse telling Martha that it
was the finest funeral there had been for years, and
though she and Martha disappeared into the night
nursery, and locked the door, and Letty and Sybil
were almost sure that they were having a look them-
selves, though they would not allow the children to
do so.
It was the children's grandfather who died, and
nurse said they were very 'eartless because they did
not cry when she told them he was dead, though she
sniffed a good deal herself behind the corner of her
apron, and gave them each a clean pocket-handker-
chief for the same purpose ; and Letty and Sybil both
tried their best, and thought of the doll he had given
them, and of the grapes he put on their plate when
they came down to dessert ; but though they blinked
their eyes very hard, they kept quite dry, and just then
the kitten jumped up at nurse's apron string and
made them laugh, and nurse said they were 'eartless ;
and when she went on to tell them that Mr. Dick was
coming home, it was no use the children trying to
look sad any longer, and it was as much as they
could do to resist dancing round the room. Dick was
their own brother, and quite grown up, but not grown
" THE *POOR, OLD GRANDPA THER." 7
up dull like most people ; he was not too old to enjoy
a game of blind man's buff, or feeding the ducks in
the Serpentine, or a long afternoon in the Zoological
Gardens with a really satisfactory time devoted to
the monkeys ; and it was not only just to please the
children, with a sort of kind, patient endurance, like
most grown up people, which spoils half the pleasure,
but because he liked it himself ; and when he took
them to the Pantomime he always took three seats
in a row, and sat between his two little sisters, so that
they should all see just the same ; and he laughed
quite as much and much louder than either of them
instead of putting the little ones in front and retiring
to the back of the box, and yawning like Uncle Tom.
Dick was at Oxford when his grandfather died,
and they telegraphed for him to come at once. Old
Mr. Lucas died very suddenly. He seemed quite
wetl when he came in to dinner, and Letty< and
Sybil had their white frocks put on, and went down
to dessert as usual ; and they did not notice that he
was silent, for he always was so, and the little girls
never remembered on any occasion his saying more
to them than, " Good girl, good girl ! " and patting
them on the head, as if he were thinking of anything
in the world except his little granddaughters. Sybil
8 TIP CAT.
fancied that he said, " bless you," as she kissed his
gray whisker, but Letty did not hear him.
He went into the library behind the dining-room
after dinner, as he generally did when he was alone,
and had his coffee taken to him there, and when Jen-
kins went in to ask if he wanted anything more, he
was writing letters at the table, and there they found
him next morning, dead, apd lys head had fallen for-
ward on to a letter he had jjus't begun to Dick. " My
dear Dick," and that was allN(( J
Dick always kept that blotted sheet among his
most precious possessions, and when people said
that the old man had dealt unfairly with him and
the little girls, and blamed him, and it was hard to
find an answer for them in a very sore heart, Dick
would get out the" -paper and look at it with tears in
^v~ / ^^^ ^^ ^^""r\ I "~~
his eyes and say, " Poor old fellow, he meant to set
it right ; it wasn't his fault."
The old grandfather was certainly very fond of
Dick, though he was nearly as silent with him as he
was with the little girls ; but Dick was used to him,
and would chatter away to him about his school life
and the fun he had, and the friends, and the fights,
and the mischief, without being discouraged by only
receiving a grunt or an absent, preoccupied look for
"THE POOR, OLD GRANDFATHER." 9
all response. And Dick was very fond of him ; the
boy had been sent home from India when he was
quite a baby, so the dull, old house in Bedford Place
had been the only home he had ever known, and the
silent, grave, old grandfather had taken the place of
his parents, for long letters on foreign paper cannot
replace daily intercourse, however kind and loving
they may be. Dick was quite a big boy when Letty
and Sybil came home to England, and he was just
going to leave school. Four little baby brothers had
been born between Dick and Letty, but they had all
died, and the poor mother kept the two little girls with
her as long as she dared, and it nearly broke her heart
parting from them, and the children will never for-
get how she looked when she said, " Good-bye, my
darlings ; love one another, and be good to grand-
papa and brother Dick till I come home."
It was only six months afterwards that the news
came that both Colonel and Mrs. Lucas had died of
cholera, Dick told the little girls. He came up
into the nursery and took them on his knees and
put his arms round them, and they each rested her
head on his shoulder. They were very little then
and did not understand, it was all so strange ; and
they did not cry, for Dick said that father and mother
io TIP CAT.
were not farther off, for heaven was nearer than
India.
" But, Dick," Letty said, wistfully, " they won't
ever come home now ? "
" They've gone home," he answered ; " and
we'll go home too, some day."
The only people who did not like Dick were
Uncle Tom and Aunt Maria. Uncle Tom was
Colonel Lucas's younger brother, and he had always
been the steady, hard-working, industrious one ;
and, while the Colonel was extravagant and reckless
and wild, and got into debt over aW over again,
Uncle Tom was always quiet and well-behaved and
J
never gave old Mr. Lucas any trouble,-^nd married
Aunt Maria, who was a good deal older than him-
self and had a large fortune. Uncle Tom had been
a partner in the bank for some years, and was very
well off, and had a very elegant house in Regent's
Park and two little girls, whom Letty and Sybil cor-
dially disliked, as they were very prim and well-be-
haved, and were constantly held up as examples of
lady-like conduct by nurse and Martha. But as
Uncle Tom was so rich and comfortable, it seemed
very strange that he should have been so displeased
when his father offered to have Dick to live with
" THE POOR, OLD GRANDPA THER." 1 1
him, for the Colonel had very little money, and had
married a wife without a penny, though she was
beautiful and good. But nevertheless Uncle Tom
seemed to grudge every penny that was spent on the
boy's education, and he was quite angry at the idea
of his being sent to Oxford. He never ventured to
say anything to the old man about it, but he showed
what he felt to Dick plainly enough) and nothing
made him so furious as when any one spoke of Dick
as his grandfather's heir.
But to go back to the day that the old man died.
Dick was telegraphed for ; but as he was away from
Oxford that day, he did not get the message till the
afternoon, and it was quite the evening before he
came into the nursery with such a real look of sorrow
in his face that the children were 'eartless no longer,
but ran to him crying and clung round his neck
sobbing. They had never seen any one grown up
cry before, for their mother's tears at parting had
been hidden away under smiles that were a hundred
times more sad, and as for nurse's sniffing behind
her apron, they were not taken in by that ; but the
little choke in Dick's voice as he said, " The poor, old
grandfather," touched the hearts that nurse had
thought so very hard and unfeeling.
12 TIP CAT.
They sat all cuddled up together in the rocking
chair, just as they had done when the news came
from India that their father and mother had gone
home, only the arms that clung round Dick's neck
were longer, and there was down on the cheeks
against which the children's pressed.
Uncle Tom had come in the morning, and had
stood by the nursery table, where Letty and Sybil
had been arranging the Noah's Ark animals in pairs
to follow the funeral of one of the elephants, whom
nurse had stepped on and fatally injured in the morn-
ing. He leant his hands on the table and kept sway-
ing backwards and forwards, and the children were
so afraid that he would upset the giraffes, who were
very unsteady on their feet, that they did not pay
much attention to what he said about afflictive dis-
pensations and decrees of Providence.
In the afternoon Aunt Maria arrived, and was
present when the milliner came to take orders for
the mourning, much to nurse's irritation. It was as
much as either nurse or the milliner could do to
answer civilly when Aunt Maria insisted on modera-
tion in the depth of crape and the quality of para-
matta, when, as nurse remarked in an aside to the
milliner, " It's the poor little dears' own Gran'pa,
"THE POOR, OLD GRANDFATHER!" 13
and made of money ! " to which the milliner replied,
with a sigh, " Yes, poor dear gentleman."
But though nurse managed to restrain her feelings
in the nursery, it was a different matter when Aunt
Maria went downstairs to speak about the servants'
mourning, and there was a regular scene with Mrs.
Treasure, the cook-housekeeper, who had ruled
supreme for twenty years, and knew to a halfpenny
the amount that propriety demanded should be spent
on servants' mourning in well-regulated establish-
ments. This was not the first time that she and
Aunt Maria had had a battle royal, as that lady had
felt herself called upon, more than once, to enter a
protest against the reckless extravagance that ruled
in the kitchen in Bedford Place, but had, on each
occasion, been obliged to retire before Mrs. Treas-
ure's determined front ; and when she appealed to
the master of the house, a very absent-minded grunt
was all she got out of him after nearly half an hour's
solemn accusation, and only Dick, who was present
on the occasion, saw a little twinkle in the old man's
eye when the discomfited lady took her departure,
which showed that he had not been altogether so in-
attentive as Aunt Maria had thought.
To-day, however, Mrs. Treasure was not so entire-
14 TIP CAT.
ly self-possessed as on former occasions, so that
she did not reply to Mrs. Tom Lucas with the " Yes,
mum," " No, mum," " Really, mum," which were
almost as inscrutable and irritating as her master's
grunts. She had been really overcome by the sud-
den death of her old master, whom she had served
faithfully according to her lights, at any rate not al-
lowing any one else to rob him, and you might, as
the children heard her tell nurse, have knocked her
down with a feather, which expression impressed
them strongly, as Mrs. Treasure was a very substantial
person, standing peculiarly square and firm on her
feet. So, on this occasion, she forgot herself and
the character she was bound to keep up before " the
gals," who were listening giggling behind the pantry
door, and she gave Aunt Maria a piece of her mind,
and told her that now the old master was gone, they
looked to Mr. Dick as their master, and they " wouldn't
stand any interference, were it ever so," at which
Aunt Maria turned a pale green, and swept out of
the kitchen with as much dignity as she could com-
mand, leaving Mrs. Treasure to subside into hysterics
on one of the kitchen chairs, which lasted so long,
and required such constant attention from her sym-
pathising fellow-servants, with smelling-salts and
"THE POOR, OLD GRANDFATHER!" 15
burnt feathers, and patting the palms of her hands,
and applying water outwardly and peppermint inward-
ly to bring her to, that nurse and Martha were both
called down to help in the difficult process of restora-
tion, and that was how it was that Letty and Sybil
were alone in the nursery when Dick came in.
I think it was the news of his arrival that ultimately
roused Mrs. Treasure, and nothing would do but
that she must prepare dinner for him with her own
hands. " As sha'n't feel no difference if I can help
it, and always liked curry from a child, bless him ! "
Jenkins too bustled about, fetching up choice wine
from the cellar and laying the dinner with its usual
pompous accessories of solid plate and old-fashioned
cut glass in the gloomy dining-room, where evening
after evening the old grandfather had dined by him-
self in solitary state.
But Dick sat with the children in the nursery, only
lighted by the big, blazing fire, which shone on the
robins on the wall-paper and the colored pictures
from the Illustrated pinned on the walls, and on the
doll's house in the corner, with Noah's ark standing
on the top of it, and by and by, when Martha came
running up to put on the kettle for tea for tea
time had been quite forgotten in the prevailing ex-
1 6 TIP CAT.
citement in the house Dick asked them to bring his
dinner up there, and he and the children had quite
a merry tea dinner after all, when their eyes were
dried ; for Dick did not seem to think it wrong to
laugh, or expect every one to speak very low, and
sigh at the end of each sentence, as nurse did.
READING THE WILL. 17
CHAPTER II.
READING THE WILL.
DURING the four days that passed after their
grandfather's death and before the funeral, the chil-
dren saw very little of Dick. There was a great deal
to be arranged, and every one turned to Dick for
directions. Mr. Murchison, the lawyer, was there
every day with Dick and Uncle Tom, looking through
the papers in the library. Mr. Murchison was an
old friend of Mr. Lucas's, and used often to come
and dine with him, and he was fond of Dick and kind
to the little girls, for whom he brought little, oblong,
wooden boxes of rose lozenges, and whom he had
now and then to tea in his chambers in Bedford
Row.
But this week the children thought he was not at
all nice or pleasant, when by chance they came
across him, for he hardly took any notice of them,
1 8 TIP CAT.
and would not look at a gutta-percha face they had
bought, just because it was like one of his clerks.
He seemed in a great fuss and anxiety, and Dick too
got to look troubled, though he did not tell the little
girls the reason when he came, as he always did,
into the nursery in the evening. But servants always
know what is going on in a house in some mysterious
way, without intentional prying or eavesdropping,
and it was soon generally known in the house that
old Mr. Lucas's will could not be found, and that
unless it was, all the money would go to Uncle Tom,
and Dick would have nothing.
Though Letty and Sybil heard nurse talking
about it, they did not at all understand what it would
mean to them and Dick, but they felt the relief when,
the day before the funeral, they heard the library
door open and Mr. Murchison's voice raised in much
more cheerful tones than it had been, and Dick's
answering in the same key.
The nursery door was open and the house so quiet
that the children could hear quite plainly what they
said.
"Well, that's a comfort! I began to think it
might have been destroyed, which would have been
a mighty bad job for you, Master Dick. That's your
READING THE WILL. 19
grandfather all over, a good man of business as ever
lived, poor fellow ; fastened up and dated and dock-
eted ' My last Will and Testament.' Oh, I know
well enough all about it, for I drew it myself. I'll
call in on my way to the office and tell Mr. Tom that
it's come to hand."
And then Dick came springing upstairs, three
steps at a time, with a slackening of pace as he
passed the door of that silent room, and came into
the nursery with his face beaming free of all the
trouble that had gathered there before.
" It's all right," he said, "it's found," as if he had
told the little girls all about the missing will, and the
search for it ; and they did not pretend not to under-
stand, but were as glad as he was about i f .
Dick talked more that evening than he had ever
done before of what he meant to do. The clvldren
had imagined that Dick would step at once into
grandfather's place, and live always in Bedford Place,
and go every day to the bank, only not stop there so
long as grandfather, but come in soon enough to take
them out. They had made up their minds that they
would dine late every day with Dick, and that most
likely they should go once a week at least, if not
every day, to the pantomime, and quite as often to
20 TIP CAT.
the Zoological Gardens. So they were a little dis-
appointed when he said that he should go back to
Oxford, perhaps as soon as next week, and that he
thought he should try and find some place in the
country where Letty and Sybil could go with nurse
and Martha, and where he could come whenever he
could get away, for he would not be parted for long
together from his little sisters ; and when Oxford was
done with, and he came back to London and was
called to the Bar, they should all live together again,
and Letty and Sybil should keep house for brother
Dick.
It did not quite satisfy the children's minds, as it
was too far in the future, and Dick also mentioned
governesses and masters as part of the programme ;
but when they had arranged some- of the details of
the future establishment, and had settled that Letty
should have the keys because she was the eldest, but
that they should take it by turns to pour out Dick's
coffee and sit at the end of the table, and that they
would not both go out with him always, because it
was nicer going in a hansom than a four-wheeler, the
prospect grew very attractive and did not seem so
very distant after all.
Next day was the funeral, and, as I have said,
READING THE WILL. 21
Letty and Sybil were not allowed to watch it from
the nursery windows, nor to open the nursery door
and look over the banisters to catch a glimpse of
anything passing below. Uncle Tom and Dick were
the chief mourners, and there were some cousins
and nephews of the old man, and some old friends
and the doctor, and Mr. Murchison.
There seemed a smell everywhere of black kid
gloves and crape, and the little girls sat up very stiff
in their black frocks, which, in spite of Aunt Maria's
injunctions of moderation, displayed as deep a woe
as crape could express, and were so stiff and rough
to the hands and round the throat that they certainly"
did not represent the luxury of woe.
After the funeral had been gone about half an
hour, and when it was too late to see anything of it,
the blinds were drawn up in all the rooms, making
everything look coarse and glaring after the subdued
half-light they had been seen in during the last few
days.
The children were hungry, and as they heard
symptoms of luncheon being laid in the dining-room,
and nurse was out of the way, they thought they
would go for a voyage of discovery. The door of
their grandfather's room was open, and they stopped
22 TIP CAT.
and looked in. Dick had done all he could to prevent
the children having an unreasonable terror of death,
and nurse had done all she could to give them that
terror ; and they took hold of each other's hands as
they looked in with a sort of awe. They had often
been in there before in the old man's life time,when he
was not there, and now it was just the same as it had
always been : all the furniture unaltered and in the
same places, and yet the room looked empty, as it
had never looked before, and the children ran on
with a wish to escape from the emptiness that only
death can leave, and to be nearer the life that
sounded from below with the cheerful clinking of
glass and china, and opening doors and brisk foot-
steps.
But they had only just reached the dining-room,
and had only given one rapid survey of the table, and
had not had time to help themselves even to one of
the little, round dinner-rolls perched on the top of
each of the mitre-shaped dinner-napkins, when a cab
drove up to the door, and Aunt Maria's face appear-
ing at the cab window sent them hurrying upstairs
again and past the open, empty room without a
thought of its awfulness.
So they had to wait patiently till nurse brought up
READING THE WILL. 23
their dinner, and told them that luncheon was going
on iu the dining-room, and that when it was over the
will was to be read in the library.
" Shall we go down ? " asked Letty ; but nurse
shook her head and said that little girls were not
wanted on such occasions. But she was wrong, for
the little girls had only just said their grace and taken
off their pinafores, when Dick came up to fetch them,
and they went down, each holding one of his hands,
which made it rather a squeeze to get down stairs.
He was looking a little bit vexed and worried.
Some of the nephews and cousins who came to the
funeral were poor, and could not help, poor souls,
feeling a little envious of Dick, with whom life
seemed going so much more smoothly than it ever
had done with them, and now and then through lun-
cheon, a word or a look would show what they felt,
and wounded Dick's kind, gentle heart that would
have made the whole world rich and happy and good
if he could.
In the library they were all assembled when Dick
and his little sisters came in. There was an-
other lady present beside Aunt Maria. t A niece of
old Mr. Lucas, a depressed, rather mouldy-looking
widow, who sniffed at any pause in the conversa-
24 TIP CAT.
tion and echoed all Aunt Maria's opinions almost
before she had heard what they were. Aunt Maria
sat very upright in an arm-chair, and beckoned to
the children to come to her when they came in ; but
they pretended not to see her signal, but followed
Dick to his chair rather behind Mr. Murchison, who
sat up to the table with some papers before him.
Mrs. Treasure and Jenkins were also there, Mrs.
Treasure resplendent in creaking mourning, with her
handkerchief in her hand and with eyes that care-
fully avoided Aunt Maria, though she sat directly
opposite. Uncle Tom sat on the other side of Mr.
Murchison, looking rather sulky, and as the children
looked from one face to another of the assembled
company, they all appeared to them cross, or dull, or
tired, or sad, all except Dick, who smiled and put
his arms round his little sisters as they stood on
either side of him, while Mr. Murchison, after a few
remarks, began with slow, precise fingers to break
the seals of the paper in his hand and untie the red
tape with which it was fastened.
" Our old friend," he said, " was always a good man
of business, a capital man of business, the order and
arrangement of his papers might really be an ex-
ample to many of us, eh, master Dick ? And when
he gave me instructions for the will, by Jove, sir, a
READING THE WILL. 25
lawyer himself could not have done it better, though
I say it. To be sure it was simple enough, but he
had thought of everything, and nothing, had escaped
his memory. It was really quite a treat to do busi-
ness with such a man." And here Mr. Murchison
drew the paper out of the covering and began unfold-
ing the sheet of foolscap, with a little glance round
at the attentive faces whose eyes watched every
movement. " He was certainly the best man of
bus ," and here he suddenly stopped, and his
mouth dropped open with a jerk, and his eyebrows
rose, giving his eyes, for once, a chance of looking out,
without being obscured by shaggy, grey hair, which
they did, though his double eye-glasses fell from the
bridge of his nose with a resounding thud on the
paper which made every one start. And then he got
up from his chair and settled his eye-glasses again
on his nose with a hand that trembled, and he turned
to the window as if to get more light on the subject.
There was not much light to be sure in the room,
but there was too much on the foolscap paper to
allow any doubt even for a second. There was no
signature to the will.
It was Dick who said it first, his arms tightened
round his little sisters for a moment and then he
spoke, " It is not signed."
26 TIP CAT,
There was a moment's silence and then a voice from
the other side of the room said, " Then it is worth
nothing." It was Aunt Maria, and Mrs. Bush, the
depressed widow, hastened to echo the words,
" Then it is worth " but was frightened into si-
lence by the glare with which Mr. Murchison turned
round on her.
Then he went back to that useless examination
turning and twisting the paper as if he did not know
(who better ?) that without the signature the will was
not worth the paper it was written on. There was
the sort of silence just then which people describe
as one in which you could hear a pin drop, but Dick
broke it. He put Letty and Sybil gently away from
him and stood up, and his face was very white and
did not look as young as it had done a minute ago,
and his voice was a little husky.
" Of course," he said, " it is worth nothing if it
is not signed, and we must ask Mr. Murchison to
read the other will, which will hold good now."
But Mr. Murchison could not take it as calmly as
Dick appeared to do ; any one to look at him might
have thought that it was he who had lost a large
inheritance for want of a few shaky lines of an old
man's writing.
READING THE WILL. 27
" It's a mistake," he said, " the most extraordi-
nary mistake I ever knew in my life. Mr. Tom, I
never thought your father was failing in mind before,
but he must have been. And to think that he should
have kept the old will when he knew as well as I do
that it was waste paper as soon as another was made.
Oh, what fools people are ! " the old lawyer burst
out, flinging down the unsigned will and running his
fingers through his gray hair as if he would tear it
out.
Uncle Tom sat rubbing one fat hand over the other
and staring vacantly before him with his mouth in a
whistling position, while the eyes of all the others
were fixed on the lawyer with various expressions.
Dick had sat down again, and his hands, which the
children held, were cold, and his lips dry, but he said,
" We had better hear the old will, sir."
The old will had been found pushed away in a
pigeon-hole in the library, with some old diaries and
letters of no value except as recalling old times ; it
was discblored and dirty, and there was a splash of
ink on the back, and the ink had grown pale in the
twenty-two years that had passed since it was
written.
Mr. Murchison had drawn that too, and remem-
28 TIP CAT.
*
bered the time\well, before Dick was born and when
the old man had just paid off Captain Lucas's debts
for the third time, and declared it should be the last
penny the ungrateful, extravagant son should get out
of him, and that all he had should go to Tom, who
had never given him half an hour's trouble or anxiety
in his life, " or pleasure either," the old man had
added in one of his rare moments of confidence, with
a smile and a sigh for the scapegrace son whom he
loved in spite of all. Mr. Murchison's hand shook
as he unfolded the old paper, and his voice was so
unsteady in reading it that Aunt Maria had to lean
forward and put her hand to her ear to catch the full
significance of the words that bequeathed all the old
man's real and personal estate to his dear son
Thomas Lucas. There were a few small legacies,
and io/. to each of the servants in his service at the
time of his death. Mrs. Treasure and Jenkins had
been young servants then, but they were old when
that unsigned will had been drawn, and their master
had left them a handsome legacy each, but' now they
were entitled to no more than little Lucy, the kitchen
maid, who had only been in the place three weeks.
I think they felt it more, or perhaps realized it more,
even than Dick did, and Mrs. Treasure lost all her
READING THE WILL. 29
portly defiance of manner, and went out of the room
looking quite shabby and old and stooping, followed
by Jenkins, who went off to the pantry and then and
there got tipsy in cold blood, a thing he had never
done in his life before.
When Mr. Murchison had finished reading he sat
quite still, leaning back in his chair, and Dick also
said nothing while the cousins and nephews edged
their chairs nearer to one another and began talking'
in under-tones, with glances towards Uncle Tom and
Dick.
And then Uncle Tom, who had been fidgeting his
feet and clearing his throat nervously for some min-
utes, got up and leaned across the table to Dick.
" Dick," he said, " it shan't make any difference
to you, my boy. We know what he meant to do for
you, and "
But just then Aunt Maria came in between, and
Uncle Tom's outstretched hand dropped to his side
and his voice died away. She was tying her bonnet-
strings and buttoning her cloak.
" It is getting late, Tom," she said, " and we must
be going home. I think we had better take a night
to consider what it is right to do under the circum-
stances. Good-by, Dick. Good-by, little girls."
30 TIP CA T.
She kissed Letty before the child saw what she
was going to do, but Sybil saw what was coming, and
ducked her head so as to receive Aunt Maria's peck
on the back of her neck. She stood a minute at the
door while Uncle Tom fumbled under the table for
his gloves, and she looked round the room with a
glance of proprietorship that struck even the children
as something new, as if it all belonged to her, Sybil
said ; and she examined a spot of grease on the
bookcase and rubbed it off, just as she would have
done at home, and she felt the material of the thick
curtain over the door as if to see what it might fetch.
Dick got up with his usual courtesy to show her
out and put her into the cab, having always been
used in his grandfather's time to act the host, but
to-day Aunt Maria did not appear to notice his offer
of politeness, and the color rushed up into Dick's
face, at this first hint, that he was no longer master
in the old house.
The sympathy he met with from the cousins was
almost more painful, and when one of them declared
that he had been shamefully treated, and that the old
man must have been a lunatic, and that if he were
Dick he would go to law about it and have his rights,
Dick could hardly resist kicking him, but he forbore,
READING THE WILL. 31
and only said that his grandfather was the best and
wisest man he knew, and the poor cousin went home
more contented with the little, shabby house at Cam-
berwell, and the anxious wife and six children who
made such a pitiful struggle to be genteel on ^150
a year, compared with the prospects of the young
fellow who had suddenly exchanged riches for pov-
erty. Mr. Murchison's grim silence was much more
soothing to poor Dick, but even he soon took his de-
parture, and the little girls went up to the nursery to
tea, and Dick was left alone.
32 TIP CAT.
CHAPTER III.
A SORE HEART.
DICK did not come up to the nursery tea that
evening as he generally did, and nurse insisted on
the children going to bed early, principally because
she wanted to join the conclave in the kitchen, who
were discussing the events of the day. There was
not one of the servants who was not heartily sorry
for Dick and the two little girls, a great deal more
sorry for the children than they were for themselves,
for they did not understand all the difference that
missing signature made to them ; but in spite of the
servants' pity there was somehow an alteration in
their behavior that the children felt without under-
standing it. I do not think that Letty and Sybil
would have been shuffled off to bed an hour earlier
than usual if the will had been different, and when
Sybil said she was thirsty and asked for some milk,
nurse said there was none up stairs, and gave her
A SORE HEART. 33
some water, instead of sending Martha down for
some.
It was just the same with Dick. They were all so
fond of him and so sorry for him, but the feeling
that he was no longer the young master crept unin-
tentionally into all they did, and perhaps he was
unusually sensitive just then, and noticed little things
he would not have thought of in former days ; but
the tears came pricking into his eyes when there
was no spoon put for him to eat his soup with at
dinner, and when the potatoes were burnt, though
he was never one to think much of state and for-
mality, or to care about little niceties of food or cook-
ery, and he had more than a suspicion that poor old
Jenkins had been taking more than was good for
him, and that Mrs Treasure was hysterical, which
would account for everything.
I suppose it was because the children had gone
to bed earlier than usual that Letty and Sybil could
not sleep, and, after a while, Sybil came stealing
across and got into Letty's bed, and they talked
with all the more satisfaction because they knew that
talking after they were in bed was strictly forbidden.
But there was no one to hear them, for nurse and
Martha were both down stairs ; and by and by Sybil
34 TIP CAT.
fancied that the kitten had got at nurse's work-basket
and was tangling the reels of cotton ; so the children
felt it to be their duty to get up and put a stop to such
reckless havoc as pussy was sure to work, and when
they got into the day-nursery, though they found
nothing of the sort going on, and that much maligned
animal fast asleep in front of the fire, still they did
not return forthwith to bed, but drew their little
chairs up to the fender, and warmed their toes with
the delightful feeling that they were doing something
utterly unallowable.
" You see," said Sybil, " we can get back into bed
directly we hear nurse coming upstairs."
The house was very quiet, and the children soon
grew tired of sitting by the fire, and felt disposed
for further adventures.
" I wonder where Dick is," Letty said, " and why
he did not come and talk to us this evening ? but I
daresay he would if nurse had not made us go to
bed."
" I wish he would come now," said Sybil. " Oh,
Letty ! let's go and find him. I dare say he's in the
library, and very dull all by himself, and thinks we're
asleep. Nurse won't know. We'll creep down on
tiptoe, and make Dick come up here with us."
A SORE HEART. 35
No sooner said than done. They found their
dressing-gowns and little slippers, and because Sybil
thought that the kitten would be frightened at being
left all alone, they took her with them.' They passed
the door of -their grandfather's bedroom very fast,
for it was a little way open, and Letty fancied she
heard a sound inside, and was not sure there was not
light shining through the crack.
But when they reached the library they found, to
their disappointment, that Dick was not there. He
must have been sitting there, for there was a news-
paper lying by the arm-chair and some letters in
Dick's writing on the table, but he was not there.
Neither was he in the dining-room, where the re-
mains of dinner were still spread on the table.
" Perhaps he has gone out," whispered Sybil.
But no ; there was his hat in the hall.
" Can he have gone to bed so early ? "
Dick's bedroom was on the same floor as old Mr.
Lucass,' and just as they got to his door, pussy,
who had been struggling a good deal all the way,
escaped from Sybil's hold and ran right into the old
man's room ; and before the children had time to
think what they were about, they had followed her in.
There was some one there, and they stood thunder
36 TIP CAT.
struck, hardly knowing if nurse or a ghost were most
to be feared or expected, and Dick (for it was he)
looking up, saw two little things in scarlet dressing
gowns, with rough heads and big, round eyes staring
at him aghast. And well they might, for Dick looked
up at them with a face that was not a bit like the
Dick they knew and loved the bright, happy, trust-
ing Dick, fearless and frank.
His candle stood on the toilet-table, guttering,
with a thief in it, and he was sitting with his arms
stretched out across the table and his head on his
arms, and behind was the window with the blind
drawn up all crooked, showing the foggy night out-
side and" the dark houses opposite, giving an unut-
terably dreary effect to the room. His face was quite
of a piece with the room ; so sad and hopeless, and
set and grey : but it cleared and altered in a moment
the moment he saw his little sisters and he held
out his arms and they rushed into them.
" Oh, Dick ! we've been looking for you every-
where ; oh, Dick, come away from this horrid room ;
come into the nursery."
"All right," he said, "you two little scarlet ghosts.
They told me you were in bed an hour ago."
" So we were, Dick ; but we couldn't sleep, and
we wanted you."
A SORE HEART. 37
" Come along then,"
He took Sybil up in his arms and held Letty's
hand ; but before they left the room he stopped by
the empty bed, and spoke very soft and gently :
" Dear, dear old grandfather, we know it was all a
mistake ; we quite understand, Letty, Sybil, and I.
You meant to do all that was kind and generous for
us ; and whatever people may say, we shall always
be grateful and loving in our thought of you."
That half-hour before nurse came bustling up and
swept the two little girls off to bed again, was wonder-
fully soothing to Dick's poor, sore, sick young heart,
though Sybil fell asleep in his arms and Letty only
rested her soft cheek against his arm as she sat in
her little chair by his side, and looked up with great,
loving eyes and said, " Poor old Dick ! dear old
Dick ! " without understanding one fraction of all the
weight that was settling down on her young brother.
He had been feeling so bad, and bitter and resent-
ful. When all the relations were gone, and even
Mr. Murchison had left, with only a few words, being
too upset and overwhelmed even to express the deep
sympathy he felt, and Dick was left alone, and sat
over his comfortless dinner in the great, gloomy
dining-room, trying to realise his new situation and
38 TIP CAT.
to put away the bright future that only a couple of
hours before seemed so certainly his, and that now
was utterly impossible, it seemed incredible that he
was no longer the Dick Lucas, Christ Church, Ox-
ford, who was going to take his degree next year and
be called to the Bar the year after ; to whom society
was opening its doors and making itself as delight-
ful as it can to a young man of good looks, good
manners, and plenty of money ; that those luxurious
rooms at Oxford were no longer his, that the thorough-
bred hunter he had bought only the other day, and
only ridden once, must pass into other hands, and
that the few little bills that had seemed a mere flea
bite to confess to the liberal old grandfather, must
now be scrutinized and commented on by Aunt Maria
looking through Uncle Tom's eyes and speaking
with his tongue. What could he do ? Where could
he turn?"
"I am so young," he said, with that terrible self-
pity that saps the strength more than anything else.
"-And there are the two little girls."
But after that quiet half-hour in the nursery with
Sybil's gentle sleeping breath coming and going
against his cheek, and Letty's soft little fingers strok-
ing and fondling his, half the bitterness seemed gone.
A SORE HEART. 39
" I am so young," he said, using the very same
words that had expressed all the pity and cruelty
of it, half an hour before, but now expressed the com-
fort. " I am so young and strong, there must be
work I can do, and there are the two little girls, so I
have something to work for."
40 TIP CAT.
CHAPTER IV.
PLANS FOR THE FUTURE.
THERE was something hopeful and exhilarating
about the weather next morning, and the servants
thought some unexpected piece of good news must
have come to Dick during the night, when they heard
him whistling to himself over his dressing as light-
hearted as a lark. He even felt surprised at himself
when he looked in the glass that he was not haggard
and heavy-eyed, with black care sitting visibly on his
shoulders, touching his hair with grey, and drawing
lines round mouth and eyes. On the contrary he
looked uncommonly fresh and youthful, but what can
you not do when you are young and in good health,
and have had a perfectly good night, enlivened with
dreams of a capital run with the hounds, when the
February sky is blue even through London smoke
and there is a breath of spring and violets in the air
PLANS FOR THE FUTURE. 41
that drives away all memory of the fogs that curtained
you in only yesterday ?
Dick found a note on the breakfast table awaiting
him from Uncle Tom, asking him to come round that
morning to his house to talk over arrangements, as
he had a touch of gout in one foot and could not get
down to the bank that day. Dick shrewdly suspected
that Uncle Tom's gout was brought on by Aunt
Maria's anxiety to be present at any interview that
might take place, and by her fixed determination to
have a voice, and that a very ruling one, in any ar-
rangements that might be made, and he would much
rather have settled it. all with Uncle Tom alone in
his room at the bank, or in Mr. Murchison's office,
with the kind, old lawyer to put everything in its best
light.
But there was no help for it ; gout is a circumstance
to which we must all give way. So, breakfast being
over, Dick called the little girls to put on their things
and come with him.
Jenkins came into the hall to help him on with his
overcoat ; the old man was looking very dilapidated
after his last night's excess, and Dick, who guessed
the cause of part of his miserable looks, had taken
no notice of his sigh as he handed the coffee, or his
42 TIP CAT.
sniff over the fried bacon ; but now there was some-
thing so appealing in the old man's dejected face
that Dick took hold of the unsteady hand that was
fumbling with his coat and shook it warmly.
" Cheer up, old friend," he said ; " there are better
days in store for us all yet, never fear ! " which sent
the old man shuffling off sobbing into the pantry,
hardly hearing Dick's concluding words, " but I don't
think whisky will bring them any the quicker." But I
think the kindness and the shake of the hand carried
the moral straighter to his heart than any words could
have done.
Letty and Sybil came running down stairs, pulling
on obstinate, new, black gloves in a violent and reck-
less manner in their haste to be off, and the three
set off very cheerfully, though the children experi-
enced the first pinch of their fallen fortunes when
Dick refused to buy them each a bunch of violets
from the basket that was offered temptingly at the
corner. They passed the cabstand too with firm
resolution, not to be shaken by the most insinuating
touching of hats or raising of whips from friendly
cabbies, and Dick felt as if he were already two shil-
lings the richer for the saved cab-hire.
There was plenty of time ; they were all good
PLANS FOR THE FUTURE. 43
walkers, and Dick's pride would not swallow an om-
nibus just at present poor, silly fellow ; though Letty
and Sybil grew silent towards the end cf the walk
and dragged back a good deal, stoutly denying, how-
ever, all the time that they were the least tired.
They found Uncle Tom established in the arm-
chair in the dining-room, with one of his feet swathed
in flannel and laid up on a chair, and Aunt Maria
mounting guard over the sufferer with her knitting
and with all the outward marks of a patient and long-
suffering wife, ready to attend to the slightest wish of
her irritable lord and master.
There was no doubt that Uncle Tom was thor-
oughly uncomfortable and ill at ease, but whether
this was from the gout or from what he had to say
to Dick, is not, I think, doubtful, even though it had
been persistently pointed out to him during the
watches of the night, that what he was going to pro-
pose was the best, and wisest, and most generous,
and, in fact, the only course to take. But the words
were not very sweet to Uncle Tom's lips and he
would gladly have turned over in his bed and gone
to sleep and left his wife and Dick to fight it out to-
gether; and the sound of Aunt Maria's knitting
needles, which had a little, vicious click peculiar to
44 TIP CAT.
themselves, made him so nervous, that the groan he
gave vent to every now and then was by no means
unprovoked, though not by the twinges of gout to
which Dick attributed them, and which were really
of the very slightest description.
"Well, Dick," he said, after the preliminaries
about health and weather had been got through, " it
must have been a very great surprise to you the way
matters went yesterday. So it was to all eh, my
dear ? " appealing to his wife, who was, however, too
busy counting the stitches on one of her needles to
make any answer. So he had to turn back to Dick,
who replied that it certainly was a great surprise.
" It comes very hard on you, Dick ; as, of course,
it will make some difference in your prospects."
" Of course," said Dick. " All the difference in
the world."
He spoke so cheerfully, that Uncle Tom went on
more easily and with less humming and hawing.
" I'm glad to see you take it so well, for your aunt
and I have been saying how hard it comes on you to
give up Oxford, though we were never in favor of
your going there in the first instance."
A moment before, Dick would have said that he
had known from the very first that Oxford was now
PLANS FOR THE FUTURE. 45
quite out of the question, and that even if Uncle
Tom, with startling and unexpected generosity, had
offered to let him remain till he had taken his degree,
he would, on no account, have agreed to do so at his
expense, but still there must have been lurking some-
where undetected in his inmost heart a hope that
things might after all turn out differently, for, at
those words of Uncle Tom's, a dull pain awoke in his
heart that only the uprooting* of a hope can cause.
But he only laughed, and neither Uncle Tom nor
Aunt Maria loved him well enough to notice the
harshness of that laugh, and only Letty, who had
declined to go to the nursery with Sybil, glanced up
quickly at his face as if she heard something unusual.
But there was nothing to be read there, then or after-
wards, while Uncle Tom unfolded the plans he and
Aunt Maria had sketched out during the night, and
Dick only said, " To be sure," and " Of course,"
and " Thank you, sir," with such quiet submission
that Aunt Maria looked sharply at him, more than
once, to see if there were any concealed sarcasm, in
the thanks for what, even she could not help feeling,
was not a very generous proposal.
Dick was to have a place in the bank with a salary
of ioo/. a year.
46 TIP CAT.
Dick writhed a little as Aunt Maria pointed out
that it was out of pure kindness (she could not quite
bring out the word charity) that his uncle took him
on, as no extra clerk was wanted, and he would not
be of the slightest use for morlths, if at all, as young
men who had been brought up in idle, extravagant
habits very rarely become good men of business ;
but he only said he would do his best and was
awfully obliged ; and he tried not to think of the
clerks, on whom he had hitherto looked down, and
whom he had patronized in an easy, good-natured
way with a sublime, assured feeling of superiority
and who would now be his equals, if not his super-
iors.
Uncle Tom's spirits quite rose at the quiet and
satisfactory way in which he was getting through the
business, and Dick's attention wandered a little from
the arrangements for the sale of the furniture in Bed-
ford Place and the letting of the house, the details of
which were to be left to Mr. Murchison, though that
gentleman was in no favor with Aunt Maria at pres-
ent. As she told Dick, she could not have much
confidence in a man who expressed himself in such
an unprofessional and ungentlemanlike way as he
had done over the unsigned will ; but Uncle Tom
PLANS FOR THE FUTURE. 47
had declared that it would be impossible to put the
business into other hands, so paying the lawyer out
must be left till another day.
Dick would have to find lodgings for himself in
the neighborhood of Lucas's Bank. " And I ought
to caution you, Dick," said Aunt Maria, " that your
means will not allow of any extravagance."
" No, you will have to be careful," said Uncle
Tom, " for though there will be the 50^. a year from
your father's estate "
' " But there are the little girls ! " said Dick, sud-
denly arousing to the fact that he had forgotten
Letty and Sybil, and grown selfish in his trouble ;
" there are the little girls."
And Uncle Tom also roused to the consciousness
that he was not out of the wood yet, and that per-
haps this might be the most difficult part of it.
" I was coming to them," he said. " Letty, run
away to the nursery."
But Letty only drew closer to Dick.
" Your aunt and I have thought a great deal
about the children, and though your aunt was
anxious " (here Uncle Tom gave a swallow as if the
words stuck in his throat) " to have them to bring up
with Ellen and Grace " (here Letty squeezed Dick's
48 TIP CAT.
hand, in horror, very hard), " we felt there were a
good many objections, and that it was our duty to
consider first what would be for the good of our own
children."
" Certainly," agreed Dick.
" So your aunt has consented to give up her wish,
and she has got particulars of a school which we
think would be very suitable."
" Indeed," said Dick, with a reassuring pat to a
trembling little hand clinging to his arm.
" It seems an excellently managed establishment,
and the terms are very moderate."
"They are "rather young for school yet," said
Dick.
" Not at all, not at all," said Aunt Maria ; " they
have been shamefully spoiled, and no doubt are very
backward. Grace and Ellen at their age were well
advanced, and it is high time they should be learning
something, if they are to support themselves when
they grow up."
" What ? " said Dick. He could hardly believe
his ears, and he turned to Aunt Maria such a look
of amazement, and spoke so suddenly and sharply
that it quite startled her, and caused her to drop half
a dozen stitches off her needles ; and she went on
PLANS FOR THE FUTURE. 49
irritably with her eyes fixed on the knitting as she
picked up the stitches, which prevented her seeing
the storm signals that were rising in Dick's face,
compressed lips, rising color, and eyes that flashed
and clouded in a manner very unlike their usual kind
good-nature. But Uncle Tom saw them, and grew
so nervous that he actually hoisted his gouty foot
down off the chair and drummed on the ground with
it, which may have shown either the intensity of his
mental, or the slightness of his bodily sufferings.
" We must not close our eyes to the future,"
Aunt Maria went on ; " of course the little girls will
have to earn their livings, as they are entirely unpro-
vided for, and it is quite our duty, whatever the cost
may be, to give them the means of doing so by a
thoroughly good education."
Dick said nothing ; he was looking at little Letty,
who, being tired with her walk, looked more delicate
and fragile and like Dresden china than ever, with
less rose-leaf color in her cheeks and a serious,
wistful look in her great, soft eyes as they turned
from Aunt Maria to Dick, trying to understand what
was said.
And just then Sybil came slipping in ; she had
quarrelled with Ellen and Grace in the nursery be-
50 TIP CAT.
cause they had said that Dick was a beggar, and
would have to sweep a crossing, and, I am sorry to
say, she had slapped Ellen's face and pinched Grace's
arm, and, finding after this that the nursery was too
hot to hold her, had come to find protection with
Dick.
" The school is at Camberwell, and the present
opportunity is most favorable, as there are some
vacancies, and Miss Primmer is willing to take two
sisters at a reduction, and no doubt she might be
induced to lower her terms still more on the under-
standing that when they get older they shall assist
in the teaching and needlework. She has a good
many gentlemen's children among the pupils, as the
school is principally intended for the daughters of
the clergy and people in distressed circumstances.
They are all dressed alike, and the feeding is, I am
told, very good plain, of course, but plentiful."
Here at last she paused for Dick, to express his
satisfaction, and as he made no remark she looked
up. " Well ? " she said, " don't you think it will do
very well ? "
" No," Dick answered. His voice trembled a
little, but he was doing his best to answer quietly,
and to keep his temper. " No, I don't think it would
PLANS FOR THE FUTURE. 51
do for my sisters at all. I will not let them go to a
charity school."
I think Aunt Maria was taken by surprise ; he
had listened so quietly, and being, as I have said,
absorbed in her knitting, she had not seen from his
face that he was not taking it well, so perhaps this
was some slight excuse for her losing her temper, as
she did, completely.
(l His sisters, indeed ! Why were his sisters
better than any other penniless children ? Perhaps
he would find the money to put them to a first-class
school, or keep them at home, cockered up in the
ridiculous luxury they have been accustomed to.
Charity school ! forsooth ! And what was it but
charity in future that would put bread in their mouths
and clothes on their backs ? My word ! it was fine
to hear beggars talk ! " And so she ran on, work-
ing herself up into a fury that was only increased by
Uncle Tom's little attempts to soothe her " But,
my dear Maria, my love I am sure that Dick "
and by Dick's persistent silence, for he would not
forget that he was a gentleman, however hard he
found it to remember that she was a lady.
All the same he was very angry ; no doubt it was
very foolish of him, and it would have been better
$2 TIP CAT.
for him and the little girls to keep on good terms
with their relations ; but young blood is hot, and he
could not endure the thought of his little, delicate,
dainty sisters having to scramble and shift for them-
selves at a rough-and-ready charity school. So, at the
first break in the torrent of words, he turned to his
uncle : " I was in too great a hurry, sir," he said, " to
accept the offer of a seat in your bank. I think on
consideration I must decline it. I mean to keep
my sisters with me, and must try and find a situation
that will not separate us."
"Wait a bit, Dick," entreated Uncle Tom, but
was snuffed out in a moment by his wife, and col-
lapsed groaning into his arm-chair.
" Oh ! don't press it on him, no doubt it's not nearly
good enough for him ; no doubt he can command
any situation he pleases, and it is only an insult to
offer him anything less than a partnership ! "
Dick was pretty well at the end of his patience by
this time, and Letty had begun to cry, and Sybil was
much inclined to follow suit, and he often wondered
afterwards how he managed to keep silence and
make his escape without letting his indignation boil
over into hasty words ; but somehow it was done,
and he found himself walking at a tremendous rate
PLANS FOR THE FUTURE. 53
along one of the side paths in Regent's Park, quite
oblivious as to where he was going, or that he was
going so fast that Sybil and Letty had to run to keep
up with him, and were out of breath and tired.
54 TIP CA T.
. CHAPTER V.
AN OPENING.
"I'VE been and gone and done it now," Dick said
an hour later, as he came into Mr. Murchison's
quiet office in Lincoln's Inn Fields. He said it with
"a laugh, but Mr. Murchison, pushing away the
papers in which he had been entirely engrossed, and
looking up at Dick's face, was not taken in by his
joking manner.
" Have you been and gone and had luncheon ? "
asked the old man in reply.
" Luncheon ? Yes no I breakfasted late," said
poor Dick, too full of his troubles to understand, as
Mr. Murchison did, that hunger might be an aggra-
vation of them.
" Well, perhaps you won't mind coming round
with me while I have mine ? I find I can't get along
without a square meal in the middle of the day,"
said that cunning old sinner, who had only just come
AN OPENING. 55
back ten minutes ago from his luncheon, which was
always of the most spare condition.
Dick could not well refuse to accompany him, nor
could he decline to take any part of the plentiful
meal that Mr. Murchison ordered for himself much
to the amazement of the waiter, who was used to the
old lawyer's small appetite and regular, precise
tastes.
So Dick took up his knife and fork just for polite-
ness' sake, and to amuse himself while his old friend
lunched, and he amused himself to so much purpose
that in twenty minutes he felt twice. the man he had
been, and much less inclined to look on the tragic
side of life ; and he gave Mr. Murchison a very dif-
ferent account of what had passed in the morning to
what he would have done before luncheon, and even
found excuses for Aunt Maria, and blamed and
laughed at himself for having been made so furious
by the scolding of an angry woman.
But not the softening effects of a good luncheon,
nor the wise counsels of the old lawyer, could bring
him to reconsider his determination, and to accept
the place offered him in the bank, or to allow his
aunt any voice in the disposal of the little girls. He
might, perhaps, though I rather doubt it, have been
56 TIPCAT.
induced to eat humble pie for himself ; but when it
was a question of serving out that bitter portion to
Letty and Sybil, his whole soul rose in revolt. He
threw up his head, with his teeth set, and his nostrils
dilating, and clenched his hands, " for all the world,"
said Mr. Murchison, " as if I were Mrs. Tom Lucas,
and you were going to knock me down."
In his inmost heart the old lawyer could not be
angry with the boy for his sensitive pride for his
little sisters, though he rated him soundly for being
headstrong and self-willed, and for quarrelling with
his bread and butter, feeling himself all the time that
if his bread had to be buttered by Mrs. Tom Lucas
he would rather go without even to starvation ; for
he had no love for that lady, and guessed that Dick
would have fared much better at his uncle's hands
if it had not been for her influence.
Lawyers see so much of the dark and dirty side of
human nature,. I often wonder how any of them can
keep any faith in goodness and truth and high-mind-
edness.
" And now," Dick said, " what am I to do ? "
They were back in Lincoln's Inn Fields by this
time, in Mr. Murchison's room such a quaint, curi-
ous room at the back of the house, so quiet that you
AN OPENING. 57
could scarcely guess you were within a stone's throw
of the ceaseless traffic of Holborn, and lighted by a
skylight with colored panes introduced, surrounded
by handsome, heavy plaster mouldings and cornices
of the last century. The marble mantlepiece was
richly carved with fauns and naked boys carrying
bunches of grapes but I do not know why I should
mention all these details, except because they were
always associated in Dick's mind with the plans for
his future life which were debated on that occasion.
" What am I to do ? "
The old lawyer sat drumming reflectively on his
blotting-paper, and on a blue letter written in a crab-
bed, curious hand that lay upon it. He had it in
his heart to say, " I have no chick nor child of my
own, and a large balance at my banker's that grows
every year without giving me either pleasure or
profit, and I am willing to take your grandfather's
place to you and the little girls, and will do as much
as he was able and intended to do, or perhaps even
more, and make my old age happier and brighter
and fuller of interest than any other part of my life
has been." But it was utterly impossible to him to
say the words ; he had always been so prudent and
business-like and far-sighted that he could not do a
$8 TIP CAT.
rash, open-handed act of generosity on the spur of
the moment, like any short-sighted, inconsiderate
mortal. Well, they say fools rush in where angels
fear to tread, but sometimes, it seems to me, the
fools get the best of it; and the old lawyer in his
lonely chambers in his solitary old age, even with the
consolation of that ever-increasing balance at his
banker's, was inclined, sometimes, to wish that he
had not been so wise.
" I'm afraid I'm not good for much," said Dick.
" Aunt Maria says I shall never make a good man
of business ; but I'll do my best. I write a pretty
good hand, you know, and I'm not such a duffer at
figures as some fellows. What have you got there ? "
For Mr. Murchison was unfolding the blue letter
before him with a doubtful, hesitating air, which
roused Dick's curiosity.
" It's a letter I received this morning, strangely
enough, from an old client of mine at Slowmill.
He's a( solicitor, and he writes to ask if I can send
him a clerk. He has a managing clerk, who has
been with him for years, and has all the business at
his fingers' ends ; but he wants another to take the
place of a nephew who has gone to the bad. He
wants a gentlemanly young fellow who writes a good
AN OPENING. 59
hand. The fact of the matter is, he is bringing out
a big legal work, and it's more a sort of secretary
he wants than anything else. He has been at it
this twenty years, and I don't believe it's any nearer
completion than it was ten years ago. It needs a
lot of patience, I can tell you. He thinks of nothing
else, and he kept that young nephew of his so close
at it that he broke down and went to the bad got
into debt, forged his uncle's name, and made off.
No, Dick ; it wouldn't do for you," answering the
eager look in Dick's eyes before it was put into"
words. "It would wear you out, body and soul.
You don't know what a place Slowmill is, or what a
slave-driver old Burgess is when he's mounted on his
hobby."
" Do you think I should go to the bad like the
nephew ? " said Dick. " I don't feel as if I had
much go- left in me either way. Won't you speak a
word for me ? " he went on eagerly. " It would be
so fine to tell Uncle Tom that I have found a situa.
tion, and take the children right away. I don't much
mind what I do, or how little I get for it, as long as
I'm out of sight. I was thinking as I came along
that I shouldn't mind a groom's place ; for I do
know something about horses. By Jove ! if Letty
60 TIP CAT.
and Sybil were only boys, I'd do it and we could live
over the stables, and be as jolly as sand-boys ; but,
of course, with the girls it wouldn't do. What does
the old beggar offer ? I beg his pardon Mr. Bur-
gess, didn't you call him ? "
" The salary is not much," said Mr. Murchison.
" In fact, I hardly think it worth your taking."
"'Beggars musn't be choosers,'" said Dick. "I
had that instilled into me this morning, and I'm not
likely to forget it. What's the figure ? "
" The salary to a competent person would be 8o/.
It's absurd," said Mr. Murchison, folding up the
letter and stowing it away in his pocket ; " not to be
thought of."
" Wait a bit," urged Dick. " It's not so bad, after
all only twenty pounds less than Uncle Tom offered
me, and thought he was doing the handsome with a
vengeance. What's twenty pounds more or less, if
you come to think of it ? " ( Experience had not
taught him that 2o/. more may make little difference,
but 2o/. less matters infinitely more.) " I call it un-
commonly good for a beginner. But do you think
I've a chance ? such a lot of fellows will be after it.
Look here, couldn't you write a line for me to take
down, and I'd interview the old fellow ? Oh, don't
AN OPENING. 6 1
you be afraid ! I'll make him think me a second
Solomon. I'll roar as softly as any sucking dove. I
shouldn't have time to run down this afternoon,"
consulting his watch ; " but I could go to-morrow
morning."
But Mr. Murchison still hesitated. " You have
not a notion what a dull place Slowmill is."
" So much the better. Even on 8o/. a year we
could not afford much society."
" There's not a gentleman but Burgess in the
place."
" Perhaps if there were they might not think much
of a lawyer's clerk. Look here, I don't expect to
find a bed of roses anywhere ; but I'd rather bear
the thorns out of sight. Now, sit down and write a
letter of recommendation for me ; make the best of a
bad job, old friend, and paint my portrait in the colors
you think would be most taking, and I'll give you a
specimen of my patience by not interrupting till it's
done."
And so Dick sat, with his hands dug deep down
into his trousers' pockets, and his eyes fixed on the
dull coals in the grate, that crumbled and died into
ashes as his bright hopes and ambitions had done ;
or on the dancing boys carved on the mantlepiece,
62 TIP CAT.
who had grinned and capered before many a dull eye
and heavy, broken heart in the lawyer's office.
It was a long business, writing that letter, but at
last it was done, and Dick went off with it in his
pocket in capital spirits. In the evening he was up
in the nursery describing to the little girls the cot-
tage they would live in at Slowmill and the pleasures
of country life, busily counting his chickens before
they are hatched, when a ring at the bell and old
Jenkins, puffing and blowing up stairs, an-
nounced that Mr. Tom Lucas had come to see his
nephew.
He had had a hard time of it since the morning,
and I hardly know how he had managed to make his
escape and come to Bedford Place. His gouty foot
was still in a slipper, but there was no other sign of
the malady of the morning, and he got up quite
briskly from his chair when his nephew came into
the library and went forward to meet him.
" I can't stop a minute," he said ; " but I just
wanted to say that you must not be in a hurry or take
too seriously anything your aunt said this morning.
She has been very much upset, and she's a martyr to
her nerves positively a martyr Dick."
He might have added, " And so am I ; " but Dick
AN OPENING. 63
mentally added it for him, only he altered the word
nerves into temper.
" When she has one of her nervous attacks she
really hardly knows what she's about. There's not
a kinder-hearted woman than your Aunt Maria in
London. 'Pon my word there's not, Dick."
There was something so deprecating and appeal-
ing in Uncle Tom's manner, that Dick, in the soft-
ness of his heart, would have liked to agree in his
opinion of Aunt Maria's virtues ; but he was still too
sore and smarting from the morning's castigation to
be anything but sincere, so he assured his uncle
that it was all right and no bones broken.
Uncle Tom gave a sigh of relief and turned to go.
"Then you'll come round to the bank to-morrow
morning, and we'll settle when you shall begin work ;
and as for the children, we need not be in any hurry
about them for the present."
Dick had thought what a fine thing it would be to
tell his uncle that he had another situation and was
quite independent of him and Aunt Maria ; but now
he felt quite a twinge of compunction at upsetting
the other's relief and satisfaction, more especially as
Uncle Tom was looking worn and tired, and limped
a little as he walked to the door.
64 TIP CA T.
" Here, take my arm," he said, " and let me help
you out to the cab. You should not have come out,
sir; you will have made your foot worse again."
And when he had put him into the cab and told the
man where to drive, he fired off his parting shot
quickly.
" I'm afraid I can't come to the bank to-morrow,
for I've heard of a situation at Slowmill that I must
go and see after,"
"Eh! What? What? What?"
" A situation as clerk, which seems likely to suit
me, and where I can take the little girls. Good
night, and thank you, sir."
That drive up to Regent's Park was not a pleasant
one to Uncle Tom, and, by the time he reached home,
he was so groaning and miserable that he was only
fit to hobble up to bed.
" And serve him right too ! " said Aunt Maria.
THE LAST DA Y IN THE OLD HOME. 65
CHAPTER VI.
THE LAST DAY IN THE OLD HOME.
" HE won't get it," said Aunt Maria, " mark my
words, it was just a piece of flourish. Take my advice
and just let him alone for a bit till he learns that good
situations are not as plentiful as blackberries, and
we shall soon have him up here singing a very differ-
ent tune and glad to fall in with anything we may
propose. And meantime, of course, the servants
must be dismissed and the sale of the furniture put
in hand, and that will help to bring my young gentle-
man to his senses,"
I do not think that Uncle Tom could have carried
out his wife's instructions so exactly . if it had not
been for a fortnight's attack of illness which happened
to him then, partly gout, but mostly nervous irritabil-
ity and vexation of spirit. Whatever the exact na-
ture of^his complaint may have been, he really was bond
66 TIP CAT.
fide ill, and in the doctor's and Aunt Maria's hands,
and had to transact his business at home ; and dur-
ing one or two interviews which he had with Mr.
Murchison, that gentleman was so extremely taciturn
and morose that nothing was to be got out of him
except the very driest business arrangements, and he
was also apparently afflicted with deafness whenever
Aunt Maria was out of the room and Uncle Tom
ventured a question in a low voice about Dick and
the children.
Of course Uncle Tom knew that the sen-ants had
received their legacies and wages, and been dis-
charged, and that the house was already partly dis-
mantled after the first day's sale ; for Mrs. Tom had
commented severely on the wages that that idle stuck-
up nurse had received for doing nothing, and had
also bought in the dining-room carpet and a sofa, on
which she had looked with envy for some time past ;
but still he experienced a decided shock when, the
day he was able to go out, he drove to the bank by
a circuitous route which took him by Bedford Place.
A hearth rug was hanging from the balcony, display-
ing a bill of the sale, which also fluttered on either
side of the door, at which a group of greasy Jewish-
looking men stood, as if they were quite the masters
THE LAST DA Y IN THE OLD HOME. 67
of the situation. The steps, which had been Mrs.
Treasure's pride and glory in their spotless whiteness,
were now dirty, and littered with straw and bits of
paper, and on the pavement, waiting to be carried off in
the van yawning to receive it, and with an aggressive-
ly clear "Lot 25" stuck on its arm, stood the big
leather arm-chair in which he had so often seen his
old father sitting.
The Jewish gentlemen fastened on Uncle Tom as
their natural prey, concluding him to be a simple-
minded bidder ; but he paid no attention to their
nasal civilities, but went in, and up the stairs, in
spite of his limping foot, to the nursery, as if he ex-
pected still to find the two little girls arranging the
Noah's Ark animals along the table, and turning
two smiling little faces towards him as he came in
as they had done the last time he was there, on the
day of the old man's death.
It was as desolate as an empty robin's nest in the
snow, and Uncle Tom turned and hurried away,
wondering why he had come, and what he expected
to find, and wishing he could forget Lot 94, " rock-
ing chair and high fire-guard," or Lot 97, " Noah's
Ark and doll's house," which came persistently be-
tween him and his writing all the day.
68 TIP CAT.
Nor did he get much consolation from Mr. Mur-
chison, on whom he called in the afternoon, for the
lawyer was up to his eyes in work, and could only
spare a minute to tell Mr. Tom Lucas that his nephew
had left London the week before for Slowmill, where
he believed he had a good situation, and had taken
his sisters with him, and had desired him, Mr.
Murchison, to tell his uncle that he would write to
him very shortly.
"What has he done about his rooms at Oxford and
his bills there ? "
. " All settled, my dear sir ; but you'll excuse me,
I have an appointment at four, and you know what
business is, so I need not apologize."
" Good day to you," said Mr. Tom Lucas, wrath-
fully, with a firm determination to put his business
forthwith into other hands a determination which
Mr. Murchison read plainly in the other's sulky face
and voice, and answered by a mental snap of the
fingers and " Don't care if you do \ "
Those Oxford bills of Dick's had come in like a
hailstorm as soon as his present circumstances be-
came known, and Mr. Murchison and Dick had more
than one battle over them, as the lawyer maintained
that Mr. Tom Lucas ought clearly to pay them, and
THE LAST DA Y IN THE OLD HOME 69
Dick as stoutly persisted that he ought not and should
not. Luckily Dick's birthday had been shortly be-
fore, and the old man had sent him a handsome
cheque ; and his rooms at Oxford were full of pretty
things. He had been a bit of a collector of bric-a-
brac and old china, and had a few pictures which
were worth something, though of course not half
what he originally gave for them ; but Dick had
plenty of friends at Oxford, and the sale was well
managed, and the dealers did not have it alt their
own way ; so when it was over there was enough
money to pay off all the bills and leave a little over
to start Dick's housekeeping at Slowmill.
I think the old lawyer's heart bled the most of the
two over the dispersion of all the pretty things that
the spoilt young favorite of fortune had gathered
round him. Dick kept a very brave face and laughed
at the old lawyer's groans and grunts, and quite per-
suaded the little girls and almost persuaded himself
that it was all a good piece of fun.
Letty and Sybil received a great deal of commisera-
tion from the servants during the few days that elapsed
between the funeral and their leaving Bedford Place.
They agreed that if nurse and Martha had always
been so kind in the matter of buttered toast for tea,
70 TIP CAT.
and amiable on the subject of untidy nurseries and
dirty pinafores, they should have been a great deal
more sorry to say good-by to them. As for Mrs.
Treasure, they had always been very fond of her, but
they had never before enjoyed such complete freedom
to run in and out of the kitchen and explore into
cupboards and larder and scullery ; and they availed
themselves fully of it, which may, perhaps, have
accounted for the dirty pinafores to which nurse was
so unusually lenient.
There was not one of the servants who did not
protest, and some of them with tears in their eyes,
that if ever Mr. Dick came back to London and
needed their services, they would come to him even
if it were u from the Injes itself ; " and old Jenkins
begged and entreated to come with him to Skwmill,
leaving the matter of wages to be decided in the future.
For one and all of the servants felt convinced that
everything must come right in the future ; there could
not but "be a bright prospect for Dick, even though
the clouds might be thick just now overhead ; in the
midst of all his troubles there was a brightness in his
face and a confidence in his manner that might even
now have justified the brown-faced gipsy girls, who
had plagued him at Ascot and Henley with requests
THE LAST DAY IN THE OLD HOME. 71
to tell his fortune, in saying, " Sure, it's a lucky face
you have, 'my pretty gentleman ! "
It was difficult to impress on Jenkins that not only
were wages out of the* question, but that even the
mere keep of an extra person was more than his very
limited income would allow ; and when at last it was
made plain to him, he sat looking at Dick quite
aghast for five minutes in silence, and then got up
and bolted out of the room without saying a word.
Dick thought he had gone to conceal his emotion,
and gave a little smile and a sigh to himself at the
queer contortions of the old man's working face.
It was the last evening in the dear old home, that
had often seemed dull and dingy to the young man,
but now was full of kindly memories and homelike
associations. His portmanteau was half packed, and
the little girls' box was already standing strapped in
the hall ; the rooms were partly dismantled, and the
dining-room furniture was already adorned with the
lot tickets in preparation for the sale. Some of the
servants had left already, and only two remained to
see the last of the young master and the little girls.
Mr. Murchison had been with Dick most of the
evening, and they had smoked a cigar together,
or rather Dick had smoked a short briar-wood pipe,
72 TIP CAT.
for he had eschewed cigars, and suchlike extrava-
gances.
Mr. Murchison had been very jolly that evening,
and so had Dick ; they had told capital stories, and
had laughed till they had wondered at one another
and themselves, and had parted with a joke and a
smile, as if all the evening their hearts had not been
aching away, in most perfect sympathy.
Jenkins listened a minute or two at the library
door after Mr. Murchison had gone ; he had heard
the laughing, and been puzzled by it. " Gentlefolks
has queer ways," he said, as he shook his old head,
with its forty years' experience of those ways, gained
in his office of butler ; " it don't seem much of a
laughing matter to me."
But when he opened the door softly and caught
sight of Dick's head lying on his arms in an attitude
of deep despondency, he knew that hearts gentle or
simple are of the same nature all the world over, and
that Dick's heart was sinking down very low in spite
of his most strenuous efforts to keep it up.
Of course Dick grew very red when he found the
old man's compassionate eye fixed upon him, and he
pretended that he was only leaning over the table to
pick something up, and that he was sleepy and had
THE LAST DA Y IN THE OLD HOME. 73
a bit of a cold. But Jenkins was not to be deceived,
and after all Dick found that it was rather a relief-
not to keep up that ghastly attempt at cheerfulness
any longer ; so he made the old man come and sit
down and have a talk, and it was then that Jenkins,
as I have said, made the proposal to accompany him
to Slowmill, and, on hearing Dick's answer beat a
precipitate retreat without a word of explanation.
He was not gone long, but returned rather gasping
and out of breath, and dusty, as if he had been bur-
rowing in the bowels of the earth, and glancing ner-
vously over his shoulder right and left, to make sure
that he was not observed, and then from inside his
coat he produced, done up in many wrappers, a
greasy, savings bank book, and, with a choking voice,
and tears standing in his eyes, pushed it into Dick's
hand, saying, "'Twere honestly come by, not a penny
as I hadn't a right to. I might have robbed the old
master every day of the week and no one been any
the wiser, but it wasn't my way, and I never touched
a penny but what was mine. Ever since the will
came out all wrong I've made up my mind as I'd
leave the money to you when I died ; but there ! I
never guessed things had got so bad with you, so
you'd best have it now, as it ain't no good waiting
74 TIP CAT.
till I'm gone. Lor bless you ! I've a deal of life left
in me yet ; I'll take another place and save as much
again, maybe, before I'm laid on the shelf, and 'twere
all saved in your gran'pa's service, so, if you ain't
the best right to it, I don't know who has."
He was talking very fast, and running one sen-
tence into another, to keep down a gasp that was
rising in his throat, and he thrust his hands deep
into his pockets to hide how they were trembling,
and he interrupted himself in the very middle of a sen-
tence, and bid his young master " Good night " in a
would-be jocular way, and went out whistling a
cracked air in a minor key with his quivering old
lips.
It cost him a great deal to part with that precious
book, every entry in which he had by heart, and in
which every small sum of interest that had been
added had been gloated over with the keenest satis-
faction ; indeed it had almost taken the place of a
child to the solitary old man, and it was like sacri-
ficing an only son when he put the book into Dick's
hand and went away bereaved.
But it was only for a minute, for before he had
reached the pantry door Dick was after him, and the
old man's hands, with the precious book in them, were
THE LAST DA Y IN THE OLD HOME. 75
being shaken in Dick's strong affectionate young
grasp, till the book was crumpled and the hands
tingling.
" Did you think I'd take it? " Dick said, in a very
husky, choked voice. " Good old friend, God bless
you ! And I can't thank you, or I shall make such
a confounded fool of myself, there'll be no end of
it."
And away he bolted up stairs three steps at a time
and locked himself into his room, leaving Jenkins
sobbing and stroking out the crumpled pages % of his
precious book, half disappointed, half relieved, and
not knowing how acts of self-sacrificing love are en-
tered in another account, and interest of untold
value added.
76 TIP CAT.
CHAPTER VII.
SLOWMILL.
LETTY and Sybil had from the first taken a very
hopeful view of the move to Slowmill ; at their age
every change has infinite possibilities of amusement
and when the change involved entire freedom from
the tyranny of nurse and Martha, and the constant
company of Dick, they felt that nothing was left to
be desired. They shed a few natural tears over the
widely-expanded nostrils of the rocking-horse, and
made their mouths very painty by diligently kissing
each of the Noah's Ark animals, even down to the
grasshoppers and ladybirds ; but when the cab was
at the door, and their box and Dick's portmanteau
safely on the top, they were in a fever to be off, and
could hardly spare a farewell look on the pleasant
nursery which had been their home nearly as long
as the}' could remember.
SLOWMILL. 77
Dick even was young enough to be infected by
the children's good spirits, and Jenkins, standing
solitary on the door step, saw three such smiling
faces drive away in the cab that he gave a little win-
try smile himself, in spite of the tears in his eyes.
The journey, too, was delightful, the third-class
carriage having all the charm of novelty, and Mrs.
Treasure having provided such a store of cakes and
tarts and sandwiches, as allowed not only plenty for
themselves but enough to supply their fellow travellers
liberally, and even to offer some to the guard when
he came to clip the tickets.
They were a little tired by the time they reached
Slowmill, for, after the railway journey, came three
miles in a very jolting omnibus, in company with a
very stout old woman, who was precipitated first on
Letty and then on Sybil, till they were flattened both
in mind and body.
But when they arrived at Slowmill, and the omni-
bus stopped before Mr. Tysoe's, and Mr. Tysoe
came out himself in his white apron, and smiling
as only he was capable of, to lift the little girls
out, they forgot their flatness and fatigue in a
moment, and were full of eager delight and satisfac-
tion at their new quarters.
7 TIP CA T.
Slowmill is built in the shape of a Y, and just at
the corner where the three roads meet is situated
the shop of Tysoe, grocer and tea-dealer as is an-
nounced over the door in large mottled china letters,
and the same legend is recorded in bits of peel on a
brown sugar ground in one of the windows. Ty-
soe's business has been established in Slowmill from
father to son for four generations, and though, of
late years, a new grocer had started in High Street
with plate glass windows and co-operative prices,
and the figure of a Chinaman with a noddirig head
in the window, Tysoe can afford to treat him with the
contempt he deserves, for he makes no way in the
world of Slowmill.
At one side of Tysoe's shop-front is a private door,
very tall and narrow, with a knocker so high up that
Letty and Sybil would require the assistance of an um-
brella to operate on it ; but there was no need of such
aid on their arrival, for the door stood open, and Mrs.
Tysoe's portly figure and chestnut wig more than
filled up the opening, as she stood hospitably to re-
ceive them, having to retire gracefully and carefully
backwards before any one else could enter the pas-
sage, and turn herself round in the shop before
conducting the lodgers up the very steep stairs that
SLOWMILL. 79
led to the sitting-room over the shop that was des-
tined for their occupation.
The children were unfeignedly delighted with
everything ; with the paper on the walls of the pas-
sage and staircase, which represented a fox hunt and
a huntsman leaping a five-barred gate, which, when-
ever the paper joined, presented interesting combi-
nations of 'headless horses and mutilated dogs ; with
the beautifully cut yellow paper that protected the
gilt of the looking glass ; with the water lily under a
glass shade that stood on the rather rickety table in
the window ; with the portrait of Mrs. Tysoe in her
youth, in black satin and curls, which did not appear
to the little girls at all the same color as her present
coiffure ; with the amber glass candlesticks on the
mantlepiece, and with the hand-screens painted by
Miss Tysoe at boarding school, with flowers of pe-
culiar shape and unusual color.
The window commanded a fine view, as Mrs. Ty-
soe pointed out, of all that went on in the town,
which at present seemed to be very little, as a dog
stretched at full length in the sun in the very middle
of the street was the only living thing visible, and
conveyed the idea of the utter absence of any fear of
being run over by a passing vehicle. " But on mar.
8o TIP CA T,
ket days," Mrs. Tysoe said "as is Fridays, it's sur-
prising what a deal of coming and going there be."
The tea things were laid on the round table in the
middle of the room, and Mrs. Tysoe left them to
hasten the appearance of tea, after showing them
their bedrooms, which lay at the back of the house
"over the cheese-room," as she told them, though
Dick thought she might have saved herself the trouble,
as the smell was quite sufficient to proclaim the fact.
The very smell was an additional attraction to the
little girls and they could not in the least understand
why Dick caught them both into his arms directly
Mrs. Tysoe was gone and held them tightly to him
and swallowed as if the smell of cheese were solid
and he could not get it down. It was such a regular
grown-up bedroom that the little girls were to have, with
a feather bed and drab moreen curtains bound with
pale green, and hooks behind the door to hang short
frocks at a giddy height above the floor, and a wash-
ing stand that did not condescend to short stature like
the one in the nursery at home, but raised the great
heavy jug to such a distance above some people's heads
as made it a serious question how it could ever be
lifted down by two, or even four, little trembling hands.
Dick unstrapped their box for them, and, lifting
SLOWMILL. 8 1
the lid, looked rather forlornly at the closely packed
contents of mysterious little garments frills and
tucks and embroideries, and pink and blue ribbons
in which nurse's and Martha's skillful hands had ar-
rayed his little sisters, and turned them out such
dainty little ladies. Already even some of the trim-
ness and crispness had gone from their appearance.
Letty's face had a smear across it, and Sybil's hat was
crushed in on one side, but they did not at all share
in Dick's helpless dismay, but began at once dipping
and burrowing into the box, and seemed so bustling
and capable, that Dick left them to their own devices
to get ready for tea, and heard such screams of
laughter and running about and chattering that he
felt any pity or assistance was quite uncalled for.
They were almost too busy to come in to tea, but
when Dick threatened to begin pouring it out with-
out them they made their appearance, though their
toilettes were not quite complete, as one of Letty's
shoes had got lost in the melee, and Sybil's hair was
parted very much on one side. They had also for-
gotten their pinafores ; but this, I think, was inten-
tional as a sign of their emancipation from nursery
tyranny.
Letty was to pour out tea, but the big metal tea
82 TIP CAT.
pot was so heavy that Dick had to come to the
rescue, as likewise he was obliged to do with the
large black-handled knives and forks which, under
the little girls' guidance, made magic passes at the
mutton chops, without producing any effect on those
substantial articles.
But it was all delightful the whiff of brown
sugar and bacon that pervaded everything ; the
tinkle of the little bell in the shop, when customers
came from time to time ; and the clacket of pattens
on the pavement outside all added to the charm.
They had once had a toy given them representing a
grocer's shop, with half-a-dozen little drawers con-
taining rice and coffee, etc., and a counter with a
very infirm pair of scales in which one coffee berry
far outweighed all the tiny weights, and a wooden
man with a red face and a white apron, on a stand
behind the counter. But the stock-in-trade was soon
eaten or otherwise disposed of, and nurse would not
replace it, and they found beads and slate pencils
were dull substitutes to make believe with. But
here they were brought in contact with a real shop,
and might, perhaps, be allowed sometimes to go be-
hind the counter and scoop tea and sugar out of
those inexhaustible stores, or poke the taster into
SLOWMILL. 83
the very heart of a cheese, or pull down string from
that patent sort of arrangement above the counter.
There was no end to the possibilities that every whiff
from the shop suggested to their lively imaginations ;
and they chattered away so fast that Dick had no time
to feel melancholy or the children themselves to feel
tired till tea was over, and all three established on the
slippery horse-hair sofa, and Mrs. Tysoe was clear-
ing away tea and talking to Dick. Then silence fell
on the active little tongues, and first one head
pressed against Dick's arm and then the other, and
long lashes drooped over sleepy eyes, and Mrs.
Tysoe's voice grew indistinct and very like nurse's,
and sleep's magic hand wafted them in a second back
to the old night nursery, without the aid of the jolting
omnibus and third-class carriage ; and when they
heard some one say, " Let me put the little dears to
bed, sir, as .have had children of my own/' they did
not resent the indignity, as they might have done
an hour before, but let Mrs. Tysoe lead them off
and assist largely in their undressing, and at last,
lift them into the bed which seemed too high to be
scaled by such weary little bodies, and finally tuck
them up and give them each a loud, smacking
kiss, which did a great deal to take away the forlorn-
84 TIP CAT.
ness which is apt to creep over any one when bed-
time comes in new quarters.
There was no one to do the same by Dick even
if it would have produced the same effect on him, so,
being left to his own devices, he went out to have a
look round and a pipe ; but the rain had come on
and the Slowmill people seemed to go to bed early,
and he came back feeling damp and depressed, and
inclined to pity himself and to think of life as if it
were one of those long straight roads to be found in
France, leading on dull and monotonous, with only
a heap of stones or a row of stiff poplars to break
the dreary straight lines, till it is lost in the distance,
instead of the pleasant up and down English road,
dipping into shady valleys or mounting sunny heath-
lands, crossing babbling streams, or winding through
parks and woods and meadows which most of our
lives resemble, thank God ; or as if it were one
bitter potion to be drained at a draught, instead of
being, as it is, so mercifully divided into little daily
doses, some of them bitter enough, no doubt, but
many of them sweet even in the saddest lot.
He found Mr. Tysoe putting up his shutters, and
that worthy man followed him upstairs under the
pretence of showing him a bit of news in th.e Slow-
SLOWMILL. 85
mill Gazette, which was several days old in the Lon-
don papers, but really to have a little bit of gossip,
which Mr. Tysoe dearly loved.
It was quite impossible to feel heroic or depressed
in Joe Tysoe's presence, he was so sleek and smil-
ing and pleased with himself and all the world. There
is certainly something in the sale of cheese that
produces a good effect on the temper and manners.
Did you ever come across a surly, ill-tempered
cheesemonger ? I never did. They may be a trifle
deceitful and flattering sometimes, but never cross-
grained or sour.
He had a very pink complexion, and sandy hair
brushed up into a cockatoo tuft, and light blue,
twinkling, sympathetic eyes, and a mouth that watered
and smacked constantly, as if the taste of that last
prime Cheddar, or full-flavored Cheshire, lingered still
on his palate. He had seen trouble, too, in his time,
for his father had died when Joe was almost a boy,
and had left his mother and two sisters to his care,
and when his sisters had married he had taken to wife
one of the Miss Fullers at the " George," and she
had died after only two years of married bliss (that
is her funeral card with a weeping willow and a
broken column and a barrel-bodied urn on it, that is
6 TIP CAT.
framed and hangs over the mantelpiece in the par-
lor). That happened years ago, but Joe Tysoe does
not seem inclined to give her a successor, though
there is a great deal of giggling among the farmers'
daughters who come into Slowmill on market days,
and more subdued flutter among the young ladies of
the congregation when Mr. Tysoe comes into chapel
on Sunday evenings, in his black frock-coat and blue
necktie.
" But," as he told Dick that first evening, " the
late Mrs. Tysoe were an angel, and that sensitive as
'twere quite surprising. There's a many good points
in the fair sex," said Mr. Tysoe, turning his head a
little on one side, as if he were contemplating the
beauties of a ripe Stilton, " but you don't often find
'em sensitive."
" Ah ! " said Dick, surprised that Mr. Tysoe
should have found the fair sex hard-hearted and im-
pervious to his attractions, " perhaps you don't do
them justice."
" Now the dear departed were a parable, that's
what she were, and that sensitive over cheese as I'd
trust her even afore myself ; and often's the time as
she's said, ' Joe,' ( says she, ' let them cheeses bide '
or ' Take to him, Joe,' and she were always in the
SLOWMILL. 87
right of it, and if that ain't being uncommon sensitive,
I'd like to know what is," said Mr. Tysoe with proud
conviction. " And when you shows me another fit
to hold a candle to her, I'll show you the second Mrs.
Tysoe."
TIP CAT.
CHAPTER VIII.
<
TIP CAT.
THERE was a great deal of dissent in Slowmill.
The Tysoes, as I said in the last chapter, went to
chapel, having been Wesleyans for several genera-
tions, and Mrs! Tysoe was a little vexed when she
found that her new lodger intended to go to church,
as she had pictured to herself conducting Dick and
the little girls to their seat in the chapel, under the
curious and admiring glances that would be cast at
them, and the slight, but touching allusion to be-
reavement that Mr. Parkins, the minister, would in-
troduce into his prayer at sight of the crape on the
children's hats. Perhaps she would look over a
hymn-book with Dick, and she would certainly hold
a hand of each little girl as they went out of chapel.
And so she felt quite disappointed when Dick de-
clared his intention of going to church and taking
Letty and Sybil with him ; and she was still further
annoyed to find that he had not upheld the honor
TIP CA T. 89
and glory of her lodgings, but had sat in one of the
free seats among the snuffy old men from the alms-
houses, though half the pews in the church were
empty, and though Mr. Thoyts, the ironmonger, in-
vited him into his seat.
He also greatly shocked Mrs. Tysoe's prejudices
by taking the little girls for a walk on Sunday after-
noon. Dick was quite willing to fall in with all the
arrangements of the house for the observance of the
Sabbath, and made no complaint as to his bath re-
maining unemptied and his boots uncleaned, and he
cheerfully partook of a scrupulously cold dinner
without even a hot potato to relieve the frigidity of
the meal ; but he felt that a whole afternoon in the
little sitting-room, with the smell of dinner hanging
about and blending with the odors of the shop, and
with the sun pouring in at the window, was more
than he could stand. The American chair with the
crochet antimacassar on the back, which was the
only easy-chair in the room, was not conducive to
sleep, and the newspapers he had brought with him
had been carefully put away by Mrs. Tysoe, and a
few volumes of the Tract Magazines put in their
place, with Bunyan's Holy War to amuse the chil-
dren.
90 TIP CAT.
So Dick told the little girls to put on their hats
and come out for a turn, and as they passed the door
of the parlor behind the shop, they ran the gauntlet
of Mrs. Tysoe's disapproving glances as she sat at
the table, very upright, in her Sunday cap, with a
large Bible open before her, and Joe opposite, in
his shirt-sleeves, with a red spotted handkerchief
over his head, which nodded backwards and forwards
in a spasmodic manner that threatened occasionally
to dislocate his neck.
Outside, the street looked a little more lively than
it had done the night before, as there were parties
of children hurrying to the various dissenting Sunday
schools, leaving a whiff of peppermint and hair-oil
as they passed, and clusters of hobbledehoys, with
shining faces and billycock hats, knocking their heels
against the edge of the pavement, waiting to be
taken in tow by the servant girls who came waggling
along in all the glories of their Sunday out, and with
whom they pair off and spend all the afternoon, walk-
ing out of step and hardly speaking a word, but ap-
parently to their mutual satisfaction.
Dick and the little girls soon left these interesting
couples and Slowmill itself behind them, and taking
the first turning from the main road that looked in-
TIP CAT. 91
teresting, went along a winding road under great
elm trees, whose branches met and interlaced over-
head, which, in summer, must have cast a thick
shade, but now only made a delicate lace work against
the pale blue February sky, and let the sunlight
through in patches on the sandy road and on the
glossy ivy in the hedge.
This road brought them, after a time, to a pretty
lodge and a park gate, through which Letty and
Sybil were anxious to turn, but Dick persuaded them
to come further, and they were rewarded by coming
to a stile and a footpath that led them to a delight-
ful little wood, through which a stream ran, crossed
by a plank bridge. The stream was clear, and
showed the rich brown oak-leaves lying in layers at
the bottom, and the little girls found an interesting
family of frogs on the bank, who, they intuitively
understood, required assistance to reach the water ;
so Dick sat down on the plank to wait till this man-
oeuvre was accomplished, dropping pebbles slowly
into the stream, which caused a rippling eddy on the
smooth surface, a momentary disturbance on the oak
leaf carpet, and a little cloud of mud to rise in the
water, and then the pebble disappeared and the
water was clear again.
92 TIP CAT.
That idle occupation of dropping pebbles, and a
shaft of sunlight that came through the trees on the
water, had combined to conjure up a vision of the
river at Commemoration time, and a picnic at Nune-
ham, and a girl's face that had smiled at him through
a pleasant sunny afternoon, and that had grown a
little pensive and thoughtful as the moon rose over
the beeches and turned the oars silver as they gently
dipped and rose. Kathie, she was called, Kathie
Dumbleton, and her cousin Jack had been Dick's
great chum.
Dick had had a good many flirtations in his time,
very innocent, harmless episodes, that had not cost
a wakeful night or a heartache to either of the parties
concerned, and his feeling for Kathie Dumbleton
had only been a shade or two more intense than for
half-a-dozen others, and most likely would soon have
been superseded by as many more but for the sud-
den change in his fortunes, which had taken him
clear out of the way of temptation of the kind, and
had accordingly deepened the last impression made
on his susceptible fancy, till it threatened to touch
his heart and become indelible.
Jack had taken his degree and gone out to India
the year before, having some good civil appointment,
TIP CAT. 93
so he had heard nothing as yet of Dick's sudden
change of circumstances, and perhaps never might,
for Dick was a poor correspondent at the best of
times, and had not the heart now to write and say
how entirely all his prospects in life were altered.
" She will go to Commemoration," Dick told him-
self, " and some other fellow will row her up the
river, and put on her shawl, and all the rest of it,
confound him ! and she won't even remember the
existence of poor Dick Lucas, or if she does, and
the fellows tell her how I have come to grief, she
will say "
" I'll trouble you to get out of the road."
Dick was rudely awakened from his day-dream by
a rough, imperious voice, and became aware that a
tall man was standing close by, waiting to cross the
bridge. His appearance by no means justified the
commanding tone of his voice, for his shabby velve-
teen coat and gaiters looked like a gamekeeper's,
and his big hob-nailed shoes like a ploughboy's, and
the felt hat he wore was so battered and weather-
stained that a scarecrow might have been ashamed
of it. He had a long, untrimmed, grey moustache
and deep-set eyes of a light color unusual with such
a dark complexion, which gave a sort of wolfish ex-
94 TIP CAT.
pression to his face as he stood looking down at
Dick, an expression which was strangely repeated in
the face of the big, rough, surly- looking sheep-dog at
his heels.
Dick scrambled to his feet to make way for him
with, " I beg your pardon, sir," and lifted his hat,
for in spite of the man's shabby clothes and his
rough, countrified accent, he recognized the new
comer as a gentleman.
" You'll be good enough to tell Mrs. Vivian that this
path is private." went on the tall man, " and not
part of the park."
" I shall be happy to take any message, but I have
not the pleasure of knowing Mrs. Vivian."
" Ain't you stopping at Tipton Grange ? "
" I never heard of such a place."
" Well, where on earth do you come from then ? "
Dick was beginning to get a little nettled at the
man's hectoring manner. "That," he said, "is my
business. If this is a private path, and I am tres-
passing, I can only say I did not know it and go
some other way. Sybil ! Letty ! " he called, " I'm
going back. Are you ready ? "
" Oh, Dick, wait a minute, there are four more
frogs with such poor, dry, dusty bodies."
TIP CAT. 95
" Never mind the frogs. I can't wait."
"We won't be a minute, really we won't, but they
will go -hopping off quite the wrong way, and Sybil
don't like taking them up under their arms, they're
so awfully soft. And Dick, may we take one dar-
ling little one home with us ? It's the smallest little
frog, and we're afraid it's lost its mother, and we
could keep it in our bedroom."
Letty came climbing up the steep bank from the
stream as she spoke, with her face turned up so
bright and smiling and entreating, that Dick found
it a hard matter to say a decided no and tell her to
fetch Sybil at once and say good-by to the frogs.
" But you'll bring us back another day to see how
they're getting on ; there's one we've called Uncle
Tom because he's so like, and we think he's got the
gout, so we may come back another day soon, mayn't
we ? "
" No," said Dick, " we must find another place for
frogs, for this is private, and we're trespassing ?"
" You needn't be in such a hurry," growled the
man, who had been standing silently on the bridge
looking down at the child with those strange light
eyes of his. " If you're not visitors at the Grange
it don't matter. If I don't look sharply after them I
96 TIP CAT.
shouldn't have a bit of peace or privacy. I've had
gushing young ladies sketching my old house, though
it's so ugly they couldn't make it worse even in those
things they call sketches ; and jackanapes of young
men shooting right into my poultry yard, and fishing
in my duck-pond the idiots ! And prying women
taking refuge from a thunderstorm and poking their
noses all over my place, and the old lady herself
sending to ask my advice and borrow my horses. I
flatter myself I've taught them better by this time,
but when I saw you there I thought madam was up
to some of her old tricks again."
"Well," said Dick, "I'm just going. Come,
Letty." For Letty was gravely regarding the old
man with a sort of fascinated curiosity, a scrutiny
that was returned by the deep-set eyes above, while
every now and then they turned a quick look at
Dick as if they were comparing the two faces and
seeking something in both.
" Didn't I say you needn't be in such a hurry ?
What did you say your name was? "
" I didn't say."
The man gave a jerk of irritation to his shoulders,
but just then a scream from Sybil interrupted the
conversation.
TIP CAT. 97
" Oh, Dick ! Letty ! Dick ! there's a horrid great
ugly dog, and he's killed one of the frogs. Go
away ! Go away ! Oh Dick ! "
Letty and Dick both flew to the rescue, followed
by the man from whose side the sheep-dog had dis-
appeared a moment before unnoticed^ and they
found Sybil pushing away the creature's great grizzly
head with all her might, while he looked at her with
much the same curious look in his light eyes that his
master had given to Letty.
A whistle from his master called the dog away in
a second, and Sybil soon regained her composure,
and Dick pronounced the frog, though flattened, not
past all hope of recovery if put at once into the water
and left in perfect quiet ; and as in the meantime
the other frogs had hopped away, Letty and Sybil
agreed to go back without further delay.
But as they came out on Co the road across the
stile Letty fell back to pick some red and yellow ivy
leaves, and Dick, looking round, saw that the old
man had followed them and was speaking to her.
" Letty, Letty ! " he called, and she ran on, turn-
ing at the stile to nod and wave her hand to the
strange looking couple, master and dog, standing
watching her.
98 TIP CAT.
" What did he say to you ? "
" He asked what my name was and I told him, and
he said it was a pretty name and that we might come
and see the frogs whenever we like, and that if we
go on through the wood we shall come to his house,
and he has some young ducks and lots of things to
show us. And then I asked what his name was, and
he said what do you think, Dick ? such a funny
name' Tip Cat.' "
THE NE W LIFE. 99
CHAPTER IX.
THE NEW LIFE.
MR. BURGESS'S house was a large, dull, red-brick
house in High Street, and his offices lay behind,
opening out of a little steep side-street, with a flour
mill and some stables just opposite. You had to go
up a narrow flight of wooden stairs to reach the
offices, which were on the first floor, and at the top
found yourself in the outer office, where the office
boy and Mr. Macintosh sat, and out of this led Mr.
Lupton's room and Mr. Burgess's, the latter of which
communicated with the house.
Mr. Lupton was the head clerk of whom Mr.
Murchison had spoken as managing most of the busi-
ness, and in his room Dick was to sit, except when
Mr. Burgess wanted him.
Dick did not find either Mr. Lupton or Mr.
ioo TIP CAT.
Macintosh inclined to received him very warmly, or
to do much to put him in the way of his new work ;
for the latter had quite counted on taking Fred
Burgess's place, and felt himself aggrieved and
passed over when, as he said, "a chap^rom London
was put over his head who knew no more of business
than- a baby, and gave himself all the airs of a swell."
Mr. Lupton's disinclination to Dick was from a
different cause. Young Mr. Fred, as the nephew
was called in the office and in Slowmill generally,
had carried on a strong flirtation with Bessie Lupton,
the old clerk's pretty daughter, and wild and dis-
sipated as old Lupton knew the young man to be he
had encouraged the flirtation, and built on it a day
dream of the future when Mr. Fred would have suc-
ceeded his uncle in the business, and his Bessie
would be mistress of the red-brick house adjoining,
and Burgess and Lupton would be the name on the
door-plate.
With this end in view he had put up with much
from Mr. Fred, with a great deal of insolence and
personal rudeness, as well as with his unpunctuality
and want of attention to business, sometimes staying
on himself after hours to make up for the work the
young man had neglected, while Mr. Fred was play-
THE. NEW LIFE.
ing billiards at the Swan, or away at coursing matches
with some of the fast young farmers in the neighbor-
hood, and more than once he had lent him some
money when he was in difficulties and had exhausted
his uncle's patience. But it had all led to nothing
but disappointment and vexation and loss ; Bessie
was broken-hearted, his money was gone, and Mr.
Burgess was inclined to lay "some of the blame on
him. You may be sure that after this Mr. Lupton
was not inclined to be indulgent to Dick, especially
as Dick was a very different style to Mr. Fred, and
did not show the slightest inclination to console
Bessie's broken heart which, I fancy, was quite open
to consolation.
Mr. Burgess was disposed to like Dick, Mr.
Murchison had spoken so strongly in his favor, and
he was so gentlemanly and respectful in his manner,
and so patient during the long hours of copying and
writing from dictation, over which his nephew had
fumed and fidgeted, and he was not always pulling
out his watch or whistling under his breath or draw-
ing on the blotting paper, as Fred had done ; and
the only fault to be found at all was his tendency
to look out of window when seven o'clock ap-
proached to see if his two little sisters had come to
102 TIP CAT.
meet him, as they generally did ; and the only occa-
sion on which he suggested that it was time to leave
off, was one wet evening, when a large umbrella was
to be seen standing patiently at the corner very near
the ground and sent whirling round when any one
passed by and knocked against it.
" Of course," Mr. Burgess told himself, " it is a
case of new broom at present, and by the time he
gets to know every worthless young scamp in the
place it will be a very different matter."
But Dick did not seem inclined to make friends ;
he had made heaps at Oxford, and some might have
objected to him there, that he was not very particu-
lar. On the whole, I think it was more by good for-
tune than by discrimination that he had known a good
set, for any one who was good-natured and liked him,
he liked in return ; but now the change in his for-
tunes seemed to have made him more fastidious.
Certainly he had no fancy for the company in the
Swan the sporting doctor, Dr. Lee, and his partner
Mr. Shore, and the two managing clerks at the
brewery and two or three at the bank. They all called
themselves gentlemen, though Mr. Murchison said
there were no gentlemen in Slowmill, and Dick was in-
clined to think he was more correct in his estimate
THE NE W LIFE. 103
than they were, and he responded so coolly to their ci-
vilities that they very soon set him. down as a stuck-
up prig, and left him to himself.
The Miss Shores, of whom there were five, who
spent most of their time in walking up and down
High Street, or looking out of window, and the Miss
Aliens, the mill-owner's daughters, tried their fasci-
nations on Dick in vain, and he ran the gauntlet of
the Shores' windows without turning a hair, and
even met the five in their most elaborate toilets,
walking abreast, with no more interest than if they
had been five charity children or five perambulators.
Something of Dick's story had crept out in Slow-
mill, and the young ladies of the town agreed that
it was quite romantic and like a novel, and that he
must be awfully interesting, and for the first few
days it was wonderful how many occasions for calling
at Mr. Tysoe's shop arose, or how often they were
passing Mr. Burgess's just when office hours were
over and Dick coming out. But he presented such
an impenetrable front of indifference that they soon
grew discouraged, and, as a fresh clerk appeared at
the bank the following week, of a more susceptible
nature than Dick, they gave the latter up as a bad
job, declaring that he was really too low, as he had
104 TIPCAT.
been seen sitting in the parlor behind the shop,
smoking a pipe with the grocer, and he actually let
those little girls ride about in Tysoe's cart !
They had not the intelligence to attack Dick
through his little sisters. I think kindness to them
would have covered a multitude of vulgarities, curled
fringes, waggling crinolettes, and country-town airs
and graces ; and the Tysoes won Dick's heart alto-
gether, for Mrs. Tysoe took the children at once into
her motherly care, while the little grocer seemed
never tired of their society, and found them endless
occupation and amusement.
The first morning, when Dick went off to the office
he left them with a very heavy heart. One day had
been enough to make him sick to death of that little
sitting-room with nothing to do, and he judged the
children's feelings by his own ; but he might have
spared the pity he expended on them, for when he
came in at dinner time, he found they had had a
most delightful morning, as busy as bees, with Mr.
Tysoe, unpacking a large case of goods that had
just arrived from Bristol, grinding coffee, nipping
white sugar into lumps, and turning cheeses, and they
besieged him with entreaties to let them go for a
drive in the afternoon with Mr. Tysoe.
THE NEW LIFE. 105
Three times a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays,
and Saturdays, Mr. Tysoe's cart drove round Slow-
mill and its neighborhood to deliver parcels and to
call for orders. It was a high spring cart with red
wheels, and it was drawn by a large rawboned gray
horse, with big hairy feet, and a patient, long-suffer-
ing temper, and having legs usually adorned with
knee-caps, either for the prevention or cure of broken
knees. On other occasions this horse did duty in
the omnibus to and from the station ; so Tysoe's
cart, even when most loaded with parcels, must have
seemed easy work, especially under Tysoe's gentle
driving, with long intervals of rest and a mouthful of
grass at the various houses and farms while Tysoe
indulged in gossip and mild flirtations with the in-
mates.
Dick felt rather a qualm when he was asked by
Letty and Sybil to give his consent to their going for
a drive, and Mrs. Tysoe herself hardly thought it
was the proper thing to do ; but the children were so
urgent, and the afternoon so bright, and there was
no one to take them for a walk, as Mrs. Tysoe had
to keep the shop while her son was absent, that Dick
could not find it in his heart to say no, and, later in
the afternoon, he caught a glimpse from the office
106 TIP CAT.
window of the cart as it stopped to deliver a parcel
at Mr. Burgess's back door, with Letty holding the
reins and Sybil the whip, and Tysoe sitting between
beaming with good-nature.
Dick could not help wondering what Aunt Maria
would say if she could see them ; but they looked so
thoroughly pleased and delighted that he made up
his mind that he would not worry about it, and that
as long as they kept well and happy he would be
content for the present.
As to their being happy, there was no doubt about
that. Their life in Bedford Place when Dick was
away, had been, in spite of its comfort, very monoto-
nous, and everything at Slowmill was new and deeply
interesting to them, and they chattered away all tea-
time, and afterwards, with such bright eyes and
flushed cheeks that Dick thought they would be too
excited to sleep, till he looked into their room half
an hour after Mrs. Tysoe had carried them off, and
saw them fast asleep under the shade of the stuffy
moreen curtains.
They had so much to tell Dick of their drive, and
of the grey horse, which, from all accounts, was a
marvel of spirit and speed, and which Mr. Tysoe had
let them both drive. They had called at Tipton
THE NEW LIFE. 107
Grange and several other gentlemen's houses, and
described them all entirely from a back-door point
of view. There was a very nice cook at one place
who was making tarts, and brought them each out
one ; and there was a parrot in one kitchen, and a
fierce dog in another, who broke his chain once, and
tried to bite Mr. Tysoe. The little girls evidently
thought that the servants were the real masters and
mistresses of the houses, and I dare say they were
not always very wide of the mark.
But the farms were the nicest places to go to,
cheese farms with great sweet-smelling dairies, with
milk-tins as bright, and shelves as white, and bricks
as red and damp as tins and shelves and bricks can
be, and as rubbing and scrubbing and washing can
make them, and long, cool cheese rooms with rows
of cheeses, some of them just out of the press, soft
and moist, and others more hardened characters.
The roads to these farms were through meadows
where large, white-faced, long-horned cows were feed-
ing, and there was generally a yard full of grunting
little pigs, or troops of gobbling turkeys, or something
equally interesting and instructive. At each farm
the children were hospitably welcomed, and refresh-
ment of one kind or another offered a drink of cool
io8 TIP CAT.
whey, or a crusty bit of home-baked bread, hot from
the oven, or a waxy yellow apple that had stood all
the winter on the turned-up wine glasses on the
shelf in the best parlor.
" And who do you think we saw, Dick ? " Sybil
ended. " Dont tell him, Letty, let him guess. Some
one you know."
Dick's heart beat a little quicker. Could any one
he knew have turned up, a ghost out of the old life,
and have seen the children driving about in the
cart, and perhaps asked questions, and wondered
and pitied ?
" Who was it ? " he asked. " I'm bad at guessing."
" It begins with a T, doesn't it, Letty ? and he
had some one with him beginning with a What
does Kaiser begin with, Letty?"
" I give it up, Syb ; I'm bad at spelling."
" Why, Tip Cat to be sure, and Kaiser's his dog."
WEEKLY BILLS. 109
CHAPTER X.
WEEKLY BILLS.
" WHO is this man, Tip Cat, the children talk of ? "
asked Dick, one evening.
It was that evening towards the end of the first
week, when some Argus eye had detected him smok-
ing a pipe with Joe Tysoe in the parlor behind the
shop.
" Well, he's a queer customer," said Mr. Tysoe ;
" and it's queer too your asking about him just now,
as he were in the shop not half an hour before you
come in from Burgess's, asking much the same about
you where you come from, how your name was
spelt, and goodness knows what all ; and when I
tells you as he ain't been in the town, to my know-
ledge, for nigh upon five years, you may be bound
he's up to something."
" I'm sure I'm much obliged to him," said Dick ;
HO TIP CAT.
" but I don't see what business it is of his. Who
is he ? "
" Well of course, his name ain't really Tip Cat,
though every one calls him so, and I didn't know as
he was aware of it till he told little Miss as that were
his name. Squire Tipton Cathcart is his name by
rights, and all the Tipton property belongs to him,
though he chooses to let it all and live in a little
farm like a helmet. The old squire were a very dif-
ferent sort. It were before my time, but I've often
heard tell of him ; he had a pack of hounds, and
kep' the whole place alive with a house always full
of company, and plenty of goings on. He was
thrown in the hunting field and killed, when this
here Tip Cat, as they call him, was only a lad; so
the place was let till he come of age, and the property
were to be nursed up for him a bit, as the old squire
had run through a lot of money in his time. But
when he come of age he let the place again for seven
years, and when these was over there was a great
talk of his coming back, and folks said the good old
times of Slowmill was coming back along with him.
But all of a sudden we heard as the place was to be
let again. There were all sorts of stories afloat
about it ; some would have it as he'd lost his money
WEEKL Y BILLS.
at cards, and some as his lawyer had made off with
it, and some as the young lady he wanted had jilted
him. I don't think no one knew the real rights of
it, but anyhow the Grange was let again, and, after
another few years, he come back and settled in the
little home farm, with not a soul but an old corporal
from his regiment, who does all the work about the
place, for he won't have a petticoat inside his doors
which favors the tale as he'd been served bad by
some young lady. He won't have nothing to do
with his neighbors ; he farms a little of his land, and
keeps a nice little bit of shooting, and is out with
the hounds most days. I calls there twice a week
with the groceries they use, which ain't much, but
it's not once in six months as I sees Tip Cat himself,
but only old Ridge, a surly old ruffian as ever
breathed ; but on Monday, as luck would have it,
just as we drives up to the gate up comes Tip Cat,
with his gun in his hand. I were just going to tell
the little Missies not to take no notice, as he don't
like to be looked at, and speaks rough now and then
if he's put out, when Miss Letty, she sings out,
' How de do, Tip Cat ! ' says she, ' is this where you
live ? ' I was just took all of a heap, and I'd a good
mind to drive right off before he'd time to get in a
112 TIP CAT.
rage ; but he took off his hat to the children as
grand as milord, and said, ' Yes,' says he, ' this is
my house. Are you come to see the ducks ? ' ' No,
not to-day,' said Miss Letty, very important, as if
she'd all the business in the world on her shoulders,
' we're busy. We've a lot of places to call at, and
we've brought you. some mustard and black lead,
nothing nice, but we'll come another day if you like.'
I had to get out to take the parcels up to the door,
and old Ridge was looking out some bottles as he
wanted me to take back, so I was kep' a minute or
two, and all the time I could hear the children chat-
tering away to Tip Cat, and he answering back gruff,
but kind and friendly like, leaning on the wall and
looking at them as if he couldn't take his eyes off
them, or as if he was taking their photographs, and
his dog was sitting up on the wall close against him,
staring just every bit the same. I'd never had such a
near look at them before, and they are a queer-look-
ing couple as ever I set eyes on ; but it's plain hc've
took a fancy to the little Missies, and especially to
Miss Letty and no wonder ? " said Mr. Tysoe,
" bless their dear little hearts ! It was too wet for
the children to come along of me this afternoon, and
they was disappointed, but mother, she let 'em help
If'EEA'L Y BILLS. 1 1 3
in the shop, weighing out quarters of tea against
Friday, and they was as good as gold, only they al-
ways wants to put a pinch too much, as don't answer
when you've got to make a profit. Tip Cat was
on the look out for them all the same, though he
couldn't have thought I'd have brought them out
raining cats and dogs ; and this evening he comes
tramping in, as I told you, and asks no end of ques-
tions, the main of them as I couldn't answer, and he
left word as how he'd be glad to see you and the
little ladies on Sunday if you liked to walk that way.
I didn't say nothing about it before the mother," Joe
Tysoe went on, lowering his voice as that lady's
substantial tread sounded on the staircase, " as
don't hold with visiting on the Sabbath. No
more don't I," added Joe, trying to assume a severe
and Puritanical expression ; " but I've heard tell as
there's a deal of that sort of thing in London, and if
you're used to a thing it don't seem so wrong."
Dick was inclined to resent Tip Cat's curiosity
about him and the children, and he was rather glad
when Letty and Sybil decided on going a different
way on Sunday afternoon, to a lane where they had
seen some early primroses.
OD Saturday afternoon Mr. Burgess asked Dick
J 14 TIP CAT.
if he would* like to have his salary paid weekly or
quarterly. Dick had been wondering how this would
be all the week ; he had a little money in hand for
present use, but he had told Mrs. Tysoe that he
would like to settle the bill weekly, and though she
said it did not signify and it was all the same to her,
he thought she would prefer it. But this was only
to be done by receiving the salary weekly, and it
went so very much against the grain to do this that
when Mr. Burgess asked the question, Dick answered,
" Thank you, sir, quarterly if you please," and then
grew very red and hot and made several mistakes in
the writing he was doing from dictation, and at last
burst out, " I beg your pardon, sir, but if it's ajl the
same to you, I should prefer having my money weekly."
" Whichever you please, whichever you please ;
it makes no difference to me. I will tell Mr. Lupton
to let you have it weekly."
Dick had been hoping that Mr. Burgess himself
would make the payments, as Mr. Lupton took every
opportunity of being disagreeable to him, and now
took pains to let him know that his predecessor, Mr.
Fred, had received his money quarterly like a gentle-
man, as he, Mr. Lupton, himself did ; and Dick
went home fingering the coins in his waistcoat
WEEKL Y BILLS. 1 1 5
pocket and feeling hot and humiliated, as if he had
sunk to the level of the laboring men who passed
him, slouching along with their wallets on their
shoulders, carrying their week's earnings to the missus
and turning in at the Swan to drink the first two-
gence out of it. " After all," he said to himself,
" there's no shame in being poor. It's the first
money I've earned, anyhow, and, by Jove ! I think
I've worked for it honestly."
" You'll let me have your bill, Mrs. Tysoe," he said
that night, " on Monday morning ? I should like to
pay regularly every week."
" I'll just get Joe to make it out then," she an-
swered, " he always balances his books a Saturday
night, and I've got it all down on the slate. Shall I
put in the washing along with the rest ? "
" Yes please ; and that reminds me, Mrs. Tysoe,
do you think you can find a better laundress ? I
can't wear the shirts she has sent home. I don't
know what on earth she's been doing to the fronts,
and as for the collars, they're so limp that I put on
half-a-dozen this morning before I found one I could
wear. I don't know how she's done the children's
things, but perhaps she's more used to that sort of
thing than shirts."
Ii6 TIP CAT.
"Well," Mrs. Tysoe said, "she's a respectable,
honest body as ever lived, is Eliza Dawes, and a
widder woman and a long family and attends our
chapel reg'lar. A Christian woman ; but, in course,
if she don't give satisfaction we must try Mrs. Jones
as washes for Dr. Lee, and were laundry-maid for
years at the Grange. She ain't a woman as I likes,
but she've done a deal of washing for gentle-folks,
and knows how to charge I've heard tell."
" We musn't be extravagant, Mrs. Tysoe," said
Dick, "but it's no economy to pay very little for
washing shirts if you can't wear them when they're
done. If Mr. Tysoe has time to make out the ac-
count this evening will you let me have it ? I shall
not be going to bed just yet."
An hour later Mrs. Tysoe tapped at the door and
brought in the bill, startling Dick, who had the coins,
given him that afternoon by Mr. Lupton, spread be-
fore him on the table. He was looking at them with
a sort of curiosity and wonder as to whether this
money, earned by the sweat of his brow, could be of
the same metal and stamp as the coin of which he
had made so light in old days, it looked so different
to the sovereigns and half-sovereigns that had slipped
WEEKL Y BILLS. 117
K
through his fingers so quickly and easily at Oxford
and in London.
" I don't think you'll have to complain," Mrs*
Tysoe said as she laid the folded paper down on the
table. " I've kep' all the items down, and I've al-
ways been counted a goodish manager."
" I'm sure I shall not," said Dick cheerfully ;
" you've made us awfully comfortable, and we can't
have been extravagant."
When Mrs. Tysoe had gone away, Dick opened
the bill and looked at the total, and then ran his
fingers quickly through his hair and caught up his
pen and added up -the column and then examined
the items. Yes, they were all of them correct, and
none of them, as far as he could tell, overcharged.
He could remember that neck of mutton and that
steak, and the apples, sugar, potatoes, milk, and all
the rest of it, and the addition was all right, and the
total a month ago he would have thought wonderfully
moderate for a. whole week's living for himself, let
alone the little girls ; but it was more than his week's
salary would pay, more than was comfortable to an
income of 8o/. a year.
He could pay it, for, as I have said, he had a
little money in hand from the sale of his Oxford be-
il8 TIP CAT.
longings ; but he had put that by as a sort of reserve,
only to be drawn on in times of need, and, if possi-
ble, added to with a view to schooling for the child-
ren ; and the worst of it was he did not see how the
expenses were to be lessened another week. He
had been inclined to complain once or twice during
the week on the subject of the plainness and want of
variety in the fare more for the children's sake than
his own and he 'could not think what things they
could possibly do without, so as to bring the figure
down to that i/. IQJ. that he had been admiring as
his first earnings.
Anyhow, one thing was clear, that he could not
afford to be fastidious over his shirts and collars,
and it was quite a relief to him to get up and go
into his bedroom and carefully pick out the collars
he had rejected so scornfully that morning, and
flatten out their limp edges and put them back in his
drawer, to be worn when he had come to an end of
his better-washed linen.
Then he went back to that fruitless adding up in
the hope of reducing the amount ; but it was no
good, and at last he fetched his poor little reserve
store and made up the required sum, and, hear-
ing the Tysoes still about, he went down, feeling
WEEKL Y BILLS. 1 1 9
that he should sleep better if the matter were off his
mind.
The Tysoes were having a late bit of supper with
some toasted cheese, which made the little parlor
smell like a mouse-trap, when Dick opened the door,
and Mr. Tysoe, with many apologies for taking such
a liberty, invited Dick to sit down and take a bit,
" as is a first-rate toaster and done to a turn."
But the bill had taken all Dick's appetite away,
so he declined with thanks, and said he was sorry to
disturb them, and put the bill and the little pile of
money on the table by the mustard-poL
" I have rather a head-ache," he said, " to-night ;
and that reminds me, Mrs. Tysoe, I think I should
be better without any beer at dinner and supper,
and I don't care for anything but bread and butter
for my breakfast."
" Perhaps you're a bit bilious,'' said Mrs. Tysoe ;
" and some folks as is that way inclined can't take
not even a egg with their breakfast were it ever so ;
but I'll get you a nice bloater for a change, and if
you finds the beer sits too heavy, I'd try just a leetle
drop of brandy and water, and I've some pills as I've
always kep' by me" as saved my poor 'usban' times
out of mind from yeller jaundice; and it's my firm
120 TIP CAT.
conviction if he'd atook 'em in his last illness, he
might abeen here to this very day."
But Dick thought the bill had been enough of a
pill for one day, and that it must be a very patent
medicine to cure a pain in the pocket ; so he de-
clined Mrs. Tysoe's course of treatment, and left
them to finish their toasted cheese in peace.
TIPTON FARM. \ 2 1
CHAPTER XI.
TIPTON FARM.
IT was a beautiful Spring that year, and though
the country round Slowmill is not particularly pretty
or picturesque, it is a rare country for wild flowers,
and, to Sybil and Letty who had always been in Lon-
don at that time of the year, it was like fairyland as
they followed the bright footsteps of the Spring
through violets and primroses, and soft springing
grass and dainty opening leaves and grey velvet willow
buds, and thrushes' nests with warm, blue eggs, and
young lambs frisking on thick, young legs, and
fragile, pure anemones, and bluebells as blue as the
sky above, where the larks were singing, and dewy
cowslips, and the cuckoo's cheerful notes, till the
meadows burst into a blaze of golden buttercups to
welcome King Summer.
The little girls were quite happy. When Mr.
Tysoe was going out, he always took them in his
cart and set them down at some wood, or meadow,
122 TIP CAT.
or lane where there were flowers or nests or lambs,
and picked them up on his return, and brought them
home. On the days when he was not driving, Mrs.
Tysoe used at first to take them out, but this the
children found dull, as she preferred to keep to the
pavements where she was likely to meet friends and
acquaintances, and she walked very slowly, and a
walk into the country did not at all fit in with her
ideas of enjoyment ; so, on one occasion, when Mrs.
Tysoe was indulging in a long gossip with a neigh-
bor, and the little girls had grown tired of the only
shop window within reach, which was an undertaker's,
they took the law into their own hands and walked
off independently .along the road past the church,
and made their way triumphantly to the very wood
where they had gone the first Sunday with Dick, and
where they had first met Tip Cat ; and here, as good
fortune would have it, they met Tip Cat again, and
he took them on to his house, Tipton Farm, and
regaled them with biscuits and milk, and showed
them the young ducks and the calves and a family of
pink-eyed, crafty ferrets ; and they passed altogether
a most delightful afternoon, while poor Mrs. Tysoe
was tearing about Slowmill, quite distracted at not
being able to find them.
TIP TON FARM. 123
She was just on her way to Mr. Burgess's to break
the alarming news to Dick, and to ask if the duck-pond
by the churchyard had better be dragged, or the town
crier sent out to proclaim their loss, when the two
culprits appeared, having been conducted back as
far as the town by Corporal Ridge, having received
a cordial invitation from Tip Cat to come to Tipton
Farm as often as they pleased, and having made up
their minds to avail themselves of the invitation very
often.
They were very sorry when they found how
frightened and anxious Mrs. Tysoe had been, and
still more when Dick was told of what they had done,
and was vexed and worried about it.
" I thought I could trust you, Letty," he said,
" and that I need not feel uneasy when I am at the
office and now I shall always be thinking you are
wandering about the country by yourselves, and that
you may get lost or run over. And poor Mrs. Tysoe
is quite ill with running about to find you."
The two little girls were crying, you may be sure,
long before Dick came to the end of his very mild
scolding, and 'were on his knees, and clinging round
his neck sobbing in deepest contrition.
" Oh, Dick, we're so sorry, we'll never do such a
124 TIP CAT.
naughty thing again if you'll only trust us ; and we
went very steady, indeed we did, Dick, and when we
heard a cart coming we climbed down quite into the
ditch, not to be run over, and I took hold of Sybil's
hand, and we walked quite slow and didn't run at all
but we won't never do it again, dear Dick, we
won't if you'll only forgive us this once."
Poor Dick, it was himself he could not forgive, that
he was not able to take better care of his little sisters,
could not keep them in the position to which they
were born, could not even keep down the weekly
bills within the limits of his income. Those weekly
bills were a perfect nightmare to poor Dick, and
Saturday night, a time to be dreaded all through the
week. Do what he would, the amount to be paid
was always a little over what he received, and every
week he had to draw from the small store which
dwindled very rapidly under those weekly calls.
He could not blame Mrs. Tysoe in any way, her
charges were certainly moderate and she was scrupu-
lously honest, and there was nothing approaching ex-
travagance that could be curtailed. Every week he
hoped that the next bill might be less, but it always
turned out that if they had saved in one item they
had spent more in proportion on another. He could
TIP TON FARM. 125
not bear to stint or deny the children in the least,
and he felt miserable if they did not eat as much as
usual, or did not seem to like what was provided for'
them.
As for himself, he was so young and strong and
hearty, that even his unusually sedentary life and his
nervous anxiety to make two ends meet, could not
spoil his appetite, and he made such ravages on the
bread and butter as made him look very ruefully at
the loaf and pat when tea time was over.
Do what he would, he could not impress on Mrs.
Tysoe how desperately poor they were ; when he
said how necessary it was for them to be careful over
every penny they spent, he always said it with a smile,
and she fancied it was half a joke ; and the bill was
paid so regularly every Saturday night and no ob-
jection made to any of the charges, and when he left
off this or that little luxury it was always on the plea
that he would be better without it, and he was such
a gentleman, and so unsuspicious and generous ! She
had had many lodgers far better off than Dick who
had carped over and criticised every item in the bill
and had locked up every available article of food in
the cheffonier as is the way of certain wise people,
who do not seem to consider that if a lodging-house
126 TIP CAT.
keeper is dishonest it is very easy to have two keys
to any cupboard door in the house.
So though Mrs. Tysoe managed her best for Dick
and the little girls, she did not realize how poor they
were, which made it all the harder for him in his at-
tempts to economise.
Letty and Sybil went down that evening with very
tearful eyes to beg Mrs. Tysoe's pardon, and finding
her quite recovered from her agitation and temporary
displeasure, and engaged in filling up the glass
bottles of sweets for the shop window, the peace
was very soon made, and they remained to help her
in her congenial occupation, while Dick upstairs
was fretting over that most fruitful source of worry
-ways and means.
When Dick came in to dinner next day, he found
a letter begun in large print, and Letty's fingers very
inky. She was, as Aunt Maria had said, very back-
ward, and this was the first letter she had ever at-
tempted.
" dear tip cat," it ran, " sibel and me is not com-
ing," and there a large blot seemed to have dis-
couraged the attempt.
" I told him, you know," Letty said, " that we'd
come and see him very often, for he gave us each a
TIP TON FARM. 127
little yellow duck, and they're too small to leave their
mother, so I thought I ought to write and tell him we
couldn't ever come again unless you or Mr. Tysoe
could take us, and we should like the ducks called
Punch and Judy, and we don't want them to go into
the water till we come. Oh, Dick, I wish I could
write. Ellen and Grace could write, with nice little
curly tails to their g's, and dots to their i's."
" I wish you could, Letty. I'll teach you of an even-
ing," said the poor young fellow, with another sharp
sting of remorse for all his short-comings ; " and, if
you like, I'll write to Tip Cat for you when I come
home this evening."
But there was no need to write, for that afternoon,
when Letty and Sybil were out with Mr. Tysoe in the
cart, they met Tip Cat, so they were able to explain
the difficulties.
" Dick says we ain't to come by ourselves, and
Mrs. Tysoe can't walk so far because she's got corns,
and they're dreadful painful. Dick says he don't
mind bringing us sometimes on Sunday afternoon,
though he can't think why we want to come, though
we told him about the ducks, and he says he's quite
sure you'd rather we kept away. Would you, really,
Tip Cat ? "
128 TIP CAT.
" He needn't trouble himself to come on Sunday
afternoons," was the gruff answer, " or any other
afternoon for the matter of that ; and if he'll take
the trouble to ask any one about here, they'll tell
him I'm not in the habit of asking people who I'd
rather kept away."
" But we can't come if he doesn't," said Sybil.
"Yes you can, if you want to. The corporal
comes into town every day to fetch my paper about
two, and I'll tell him to call in and see if you want
an escort, and we'll see you safe home when you've
had enough of it."
So the very next day, when Dick was coming out
after dinner, taking the short cut through the shop
as he was rather late, there he found Corporal Ridge
standing very stiff and upright, with his heels to-
gether, and he gave a military salute and told Dick
that the captain had sent him for the young ladies.
But Dick received no more invitations to Tipton
Farm, and saw nothing of Tip Cat, though the chil-
dren often went there twice or three times a week.
Now and then when they were late home, for, as the
evenings grew longer, Dick sometimes reached home
before them, he would walk out on the road to Tip-
ton Grange to meet them, and then he would catch
TIPTON FARM. 129
a glimpse of the tall figure of the old man walking
between the little girls with his head bent down,
listening to their chatter as they held his hands, or
clung to his arm or his shabby velveteen coat but,
when Dick came in sight, and it was wonderful how
far away Letty and Sybil could see him, Tip Cat
would say good-by, and, turn back, while Kaiser would
follow the children till they were safe with Dick, as
if he felt his responsibility was not over till they
were in Dick's hands, and then would go bounding
off after his master.
" Tip Cat likes us both very much," Sybil would
say ; " but he likes Letty the best, because she is like
some one he knew ever so long ago, whose name was
Letty too. But the corporal likes me the best, so
that makes us equal."
130 TIP CAT.
, CHAPTER XII.
WAYS AND MEANS.
WITH what different eyes people look at things
at different times ! or do the things themselves
change and alter and take other shapes and lines ?
Three months before, Dick had looked round the
little sitting-room at Mr., Tysoe's with disgust and
discontent, as being insufferably small, and mean,
and vulgar, and he had pitied the little girls, infi-
nitely more than they needed his pity, for being
reduced to this as their home ; and he had only re-
conciled himself to it with the idea that it was only
for a time, and that, by and by, when he saw where
he was, he would find other quarters more suited to
their position.
But now, as he looked round the room one Satur-
day night in June, ft looked to him quite pretty and
home-like and pleasant. It was a very hot night
and the window was wide open, and a great, white
WA YS AND MEANS. 131
moon was looking calmly down on Slowmill, where
perfect quiet reigned in the streets, and where, one
by one, the lights were being extinguished in the bed-
room windows, for it was nearly twelve o'clock.
There was not a breath of air stirring to move
the window curtains or make Dick's candle flicker.
Letty and Sybil had been in bed for hours, and he
had been into their room and seen them asleep, with
Letty's arm stretched across Sybil in a protecting
fashion. He had heard the Tysoes go up to bed
Mrs. Tysoe very heavy-footed, with a grunt on each
step, and Joe brisk and active even after a long and
hot day's work.
Dick had been sitting for a long time with his
elbows on the table and his hands supporting his
head, and with a paper spread on the table in front
of him, before he raised his head and took a survey
of the room round him, partly in candle-light, partly
in moonlight. There was hardly any alteration in
the room ; it was just the same as it was three
months ago, when it had so disgusted him, except
that perhaps it was a little less stiff and more untidy ;
a great straggling bunch of honeysuckle in a large jar
had usurped the place of the wax water-lily in the
window. Letty's hat lay on one of the chairs, and
132 TIP CAT.
a row of paper dolls adorned the sofa, and two long,
lustrous peacock's feathers were stuck in the frame
of the looking-glass and drooped gracefully acror
the little mirror. Otherwise it was just the same^
and the portrait of Mrs. Tysoe ogled him with the
very wooden grin which had made him so angry at
first, that he had stuck a patch of sticking-plaster
over those senseless eyes, to prevent them following
him about, but to-night she seemed friendly and sym-
pathetic as he looked up at her.
I need hardly say that the paper over which Dick
sat so long that night was the weekly bill, and when
I add that the first item was, " Balance from last
account," it will explain the desperate look in poor
Dick's eyes as he looked up at the cold, composed
moon riding in the clear, indigo darkness above.
That little reserve fund of Dick's had been exhausted
some weeks ago, and since then he had been obliged
to pay Mrs. Tysoe only so much on account, and ask
her to carry forward the balance to next week's bill.
It was only a little, to be sure, and Mrs. Tysoe was
quite willing to do so, and even proposed to leave
the whole amount to another time ; but each week
the balance grew a little more, and this present week
one or two little extra expenses for boot-mending and
WAYS AND MEANS. 133
such like necessary outlay had raised the sum so
alarmingly, that Dick felt that the matter must be
looked in the face and grappled with boldly.
There was no escaping the truth, that they could
not afford to live in their present style, and that al-
ready the serpent debt was beginning to wind its coils
round him. They must leave Mrs. Tysoe's, that
was very plain, and try and find humbler lodgings ;
but it was the little girls who would suffer most from
this, for they would lose Mrs. Tysoe's kindly care,
and have to shift and manage for themselves.
Had he any right to sacrifice his little sisters in
this way ? he asked himself. What was his duty to
them ? His whole soul had risen in revolt at the
idea of the rough school to which Aunt Maria had
proposed to send them, but, after all, would not
that have been better than what he could provide
for them ? He had a right to his own pride, and to
suffer for it if needs must ; but had he a right to
pride for them, and let them suffer for it ? Was it
not his duty to write to Uncle Tom and confess that
he was not man enough to keep his little sisters,
and that, after all, he must accept his charity
for them ? Oh ! what a fool he had been not to do
it at first when he could have made better terms for
134 TIP CAT.
them, and been at hand to watch over them, instead
of coming as a suppliant to beg and entreat for the
very thing he had flung back indignantly in their
faces not four months ago. And what would his life
at Slowmill be worth without them, when they were
handed over to Aunt Maria's cold charity, and he
was alone, with no little figures waiting at the corner of
the street when office hours were over, no arms to
cling round his neck, and coax and pet him when he
was tired and dull, no tappings at his bedroom door
in the morning, and entrance of little half-clad
creatures wanting help in the matter of a button or
a tape when Mrs. Tysoe was busy ? He must not
think of that, but only of them, what would be best
and happiest. For that matter they could not be
better and happier than they are now. He went in
to have another look, and held the candle shaded
with his hand, lest the light should wake them. They
had never looked so well. Letty's cheeks had a
sweet rose flush on them, and Sybil's young arms
tossed above her head were round and dimpled.
Happy too ! They were as happy as the day was
long ; he had not seen a tear except on that one oc-
casion, when they had left Mrs. Tysoe in the lurch,
and gone off alone to Tip Cat's.
WA YS AND MEANS. 135
If there had only been the slightest prospect of im-
provment in his income he would have tried to struggle
on for the present, but he was painfully conscious that
Mr. Lupton regarded him with great dissatisfaction,
and, not knowing the cause, he set it down to his
own stupidity and shortcomings ; and Mr. Burgess
had a grumbling tone about everything which poor
Dick thought was only called forth by himself, and
felt that, far from there being any probability of
a rise in his salary, he might at any time lose his
situation altogether.
Once he thought he would write to Mr. Murchison,
and once he even thought of poor old Jenkins and
his offered loan, and then, with a desperate effort,
he seized a pen and began " Dear Uncle Tom."
But just then the candle flickered in its socket
and went out, and the soft-toned bell from the church
struck two, echoing through the quiet town, bathed
in silver moonlight ; and Dick, with a strange feeling,
as if the bell had sounded a reprieve, threw down
the pen and closed the window and went off to bed
in the dark.
I have heard of people who have found direct help
and guidance in great perplexity by opening the
Bible at haphazard and reading the text they open
136 TIP CAT.
at ; and to some the help comes through the words
of a passing stranger or the thoughtless chatter of a
baby ; and there is a poem describing how a child
singing as it went along the street unconsciously af-
fected the lives and actions of those who heard it.
So it was that some words of Sybil's threw a light on
Dick's uncertainty.
It was next morning when he was tying her neck-
tie to go to church that she said, " How nice it would
be if we could live in a cottage Quite out in the
country all the summer, Dick ! "
Why not ? There was all the summer before
them, and if they could find a clean cottage among
the fields the children would be able to live out
of doors in fine weather. He had only thought, in
leaving Mrs. Tysoe's of taking smaller, cheaper lodg-
ings in the town, and these would certainly be stuffy
and cramped, but a country cottage was different ; and
Dick turned the subject over and over in his mind, and
in the afternoon set off with the little girls to a cottage
about a mile from Slowmill which they had passed
once or twice in their walks, and which occurred to
his mind as a likely place.
You had to cross a meadow to get to it, and there
was a good bit of garden round it, and a rough piece
WAYS AND MEANS. 137
of covert behind which would make a capital play-
ground for the children.
Letty and Sybil knew all about the people who
lived there, for they had been there several times
with Mr. Tysoe ; but they did not understand Dick's
sudden interest in old Ricketts, who worked at the
flour mill close to Mr. Burgess's, and in his rheumatic,
old wife, for Dick would not tell them his intentions,
in case they should come to nothing, and he should be
obliged to send the children back to London and Aunt
Maria.
The old man was standing leaning over the gate
into the road, smoking his pipe as they came up,
and he was quite willing to enter into conversation.
" It's a quiet place, sure enough, and there ain't
many folk pass along in the day ; but me and my
missis is quiet folk, so it suits well enough, and we've
a lived here these thirty years, so we're about used
to it. It's a good, big cottage most too big for me
and my missis now the young uns is all away ; and
times we've talked of moving, but the rent ain't more
nor a smaller one 'ud be, and we've a nice bit of
garden, so we wouldn't better ourselves. Lodgers ?
Well, we've took mowers nows and thens, but they're
mostly a rough lot, and the missis don't like their
138 TIP CAT.
noise and drinking ways as is a good-living woman
though I says it."
The children had wandered off picking honey-
suckle in the hedges, so Dick accepted the old man's
invitation to come in and see the missis. It was the
plainest, little cottage kitchen, where the old woman
sat in the chimney corner, poking bits of stick into the
fire with her rheumatic hands, to try and rouse a
blaze under the big black kettle to make it boil for
tea. There was a dresser with a poor array of plates
and cups, and a patchwork curtain across the mantle-
piece, on which were ranged dim photographs on
glass and funeral cards in cheap frames. You might
see the same in dozens of cottages, but Dick noticed
that it possessed a virtue not always to be found, and
that was cleanliness. The old man opened a door
at the side and showed him with pride a little best
parlor, with a round table in the middle, with six
straight-backed wooden chairs standing round it, and
a dusky little looking-glass over the chimney-piece.
It was not very spacious, to be sure, but Dick was
not disposed to be critical, if he could only avoid
having to write to Uncle Tom, and send the little
girls away from him. But when he opened the sub-
ject with old Ricketts and his wife, he met with a de-
WAYS AND MEANS. 139
cided refusal, when at last they understood what he
meant, for they could not imagine that a gentleman
like Dick could possibly want to come and live in a
cottage like that.
" It's no place for gentlefolks," they kept saying^
" and the missis is that rheumatic as she couldn't
wait on you as you'll be used to."
But Dick persisted, in spite of their shaking
heads and discouraging answers, and made it all
appear so easy'and comfortable that, after a time,
the old couple agreed to think it over and not decide
in a hurry.
The bedrooms up stairs had uneven floors and
sloping ceilings, and did not boast much, furniture,
but they had the all-redeeming quality of cleanliness ;
and Mrs. Ricketts, opening an old worm-eaten chest,
showed a store of linen, sweet with lavender, of which
the mistress of many a better house might have been
proud ; and though there were no curtains to the
beds, nor carpets on the floors, Dick thought the bed-
rooms might compare favorably with Mrs. Tysoe's
which were apt to get stuffy and oppressive.
He was so very anxious to think it suitable, that
he made the very best of everything, and when the
old man rather doubtfully suggested two shillings and
140 TIP CAT.
sixpence a week as a rent that might, perhaps, be
thought too exorbitant, Dick could have declared the
cottage the most elegant and luxurious accommodation
to be imagined ; and the little girls, coming in just
then with their hands full of honeysuckle and wild
roses, were quite surprised at Dick's restored cheer-
fulness, and at the friendly way in which he parted
from the old couple, who, on their part, looked dazed
and confused, and a little bit resentful, as if they
were being bustled along faster than they liked or
were accustomed to in the quiet jog-trot pace of their
everyday life.
VISIT TO BRISTOL. 141
CHAPTER XIII.
A VISIT TO BRISTOL.
" WOULD it be convenient, sir, to spare me for a
few hours this afternoon ? "
" Eh ? what, what ? " Mr. Burgess looked sharply
up at the young man. He happened to use the very
same words that Fred Burgess always employed to
signify to his uncle that he should not come back to
the office after lunch, and this form of words had
grown so familiar to the old man by constant repeti-
tion, that it quite startled him to hear them in the
mouth of his new clerk, who had worked on steadily
now for four months without a request for even half
an hour's holiday. But now it was beginning, the
old man told himself, the broom was losing its new-
ness, and there would soon be an end to punctuality
and attention to business. He had been too good-
natured in allowing it with Fred, and see what it had
142 TIP. CAT.
led to ! So he would not let this youngster off so
easily.
" Would it be convenient, sir, to spare me for a
few hours this afternoon ? "
" What for ? important business, eh ? "
Dick flushed up to the roots of his hair.
" I want to go to Bristol, sir."
" Oh indeed ! that was what my delightful nephew
always used to say, but he generally added on impor-
tant business, which I usually ascertained, if I cared
to inquire, was to have his hair cut. Do you want
your hair cut ? "
" No, sir. If it is not convenient, I can go another
day."
Mr. Burgess felt a little bit ashamed of his bully-
ing manner, as Dick quietly took up his pen again
and prepared to resume his writing, and, being kind-
hearted he would have been sorry if he could have
seen how heart-sick the young fellow was, and how
this trifling opposition seemed to fret him beyond
endurance.
This visit to Bristol and its object was utterly re-
pugnant to him, and he had nerved himself up to it
only by the constant remembrance of the debt he
owed the Tysoes and the absolute necessity of get-
A VISIT TO BRISTOL. 143
ting free of it, cost what it might, and of starting
clear in the future.
The night before he had turned out his little store
of valuables and had selected any that he thought had
any market value. A ring or two, some shirt-studs
and a scarf-pin that had belonged to his father.
There was a miniature of his fair, young mother,
wonderfully like Letty, who seemed to be looking up
at brother Dick from the circle of pearls with which
the portrait was surrounded, just as she looked up at
him morning and night when he took her face be-
tween his hands to kiss it. The pearls and gold
mounting must be worth something, but it went to
Dick's heart to rob the portrait of its fair setting,
and it seemed almost like sacrilege, as if he were de-
spoiling the dead. Poor, sweet, young mother that
he had hardly known ! His eyes were dim as he
pressed the miniature softly against his cheek and
whispered, " It is for your little girls, mother, your
little Letty and Sybil."
Then there was his watch which his grandfather
had given him the last year he was at school. What
a beauty it was ! He had hardly even yet entirely
got over the pride of bringing it out before strangers.
He had never seen one he liked half as well. He
144 TIP CAT.
remembered the extreme delight it gave him when
he first went back to school with it, and how con-
stantly it was necessary to refer to it, and how the
first class boys came, for a joke, one after another to
ask him what time it was, much to his satisfaction,
till that great duffer Mabson burst out laughing, and
he saw it was all done for a lark, and how he was
ready to fight any one who cast a doubt on its perfect
veracity, and stoutly maintained that the church clock
must be slow because the time did not agree with his.
He found himself smiling over these recollections
of his schoolboy days, which seemed now such ages
ago ; but the smile only made the pain deeper when
he thought of parting with his watch.
And then the notion of going to a pawnbroker's !
He had often passed the door of such a place and
seen poor, drunken, desperate creatures pass in, with
a furtive, shame-faced look round, to pledge their
children's clothes for more gin, and had imagined
the greasy counter and the frowsy, close smell and
the dirty Jewish face, whose sharp eyes know in a
second the value of the article offered, and whose
heart must be long dead to all pity and respect for
human nature.
There was no pawnbroker's that he knew of in
A VISIT TO BRISTOL. 145
Slowmill, and, if there had been, he knew well enough
how many curious eyes would have watched him in,
and how many trumpet-tongues would have pro-
claimed his business on the housetops, but in Bristol
he would be lost in the crowd, and could do what he
pleased without any one being the wiser.
The opposition from Mr. Burgess was an unex-
pected difficulty, and, as he wrote from the old man's
dictation, he was trying to decide whether he would
go in spite of it, and risk the chance of losing his
situation, or if he would go by the late train and get
back to Slowmill as best he could.
But when one o'clock came and Mr. Burgess rose
to go to his lunch, he said, " You had better tell Mr.
Lupton that you are not coming back to-day, and I
hope business will not often call you away on Mon-
day afternoons just when we are so busy."
" Thank you, sir ; indeed it shall not occur
again."
" Till next time," said the old man to himself, as
he closed the door and went away to his solitary
luncheon, while Dick had to endure a volley of
grumbling from old Lupton, from whose irritation it
would seem as if this particular Monday were the
busiest day of all the year at Burgess's office.
146 TIPCAT.
But Dick cut it as short as he could with civility,
and ran off, for there was not a moment to lose if he
meant to catch the train, for the omnibus was far too
expensive a luxury to be thought of, and he would
have to walk three miles to the station. So he only
ran in and told the little girls that he should not be
home till quite late, and they were to have tea, and
go to bed without him, and he took a bit of bread in
his pocket to eat on the way, and the little packet of
valuables he had looked out the evening before, and
went off, the children calling after him to bring them
back some chocolates.
" You know," Sybil explained to Mrs. Tysoe, " he
always used to bring us back chocolates when he
went anywhere ; really nice, don't you know, not like
what you have in the shop, but a different sort of
taste, not so much like soot. I'll give you one when
he comes back, and I'm -sure you'll like it."
Dick was just in time for the train, and reached
Bristol without any adventure except that, at one
station, a face well known to him at Oxford passed
the carriage, with all the old fuss and circumstance
that used to attend Dick himself in his prosperous
days when he travelled. The obsequious porters
carrying portmanteau, hat-box, coat, and umbrella,
A VISIT TO BRISTOL. 147
the scent of a good cigar, the couple of dogs whose
comfort seemed of more importance than that of
all the rest of the passengers put together ; it had
all been second nature to Dick in old days, and he
drew back now in the corner of the carriage in deadly
fear of being recognized, as if it were likely that
young Prosperous should be travelling third class
or look for friends in that quarter.
When he reached Bristol it was not difficult to find
what he was seeking for ; the three dingy, smoke-
grimed golden balls soon caught his eye, but he did
not go into the first pawnbroker's that offered, but
went straying on, passing one because it looked too
smart, and another because it looked too low, and
aimlessly looking into many of the shop windows,
hardly noticing what his eyes were resting on, so full
was he of the painful memories that the sight of El-
liott of Balliol had called up in him.
So he stood for full ten minutes before a toyshop,
with vacant eyes fixed on waxen-faced beauties and
elaborate toys, and for all he knew it might just as
well have been the little undertaker's at Slowmill, of
which Letty and Sybil had grown so tired while they
were waiting for Mrs. Tysoe.
It was a great pity that he was not more conscious
148 TIP CAT.
of the things before him, for Letty and Sybil, who
had not had the chance of a good look into a toy-
shop or a bazaar since they left London, would much
have enjoyed a detailed account of all the toys in
the window, and on another occasion Dick would
have remembered this, and laid up a store of interest-
ing information to carry to his little sisters.
More than one of the passers-by looked curiously
at the young man, standing apparently lost in serious
contemplation of those simpering dolls in the window,
and his face seemed quite to disturb a customer
within the shop, who after peering at him inquisitive-
ly between the Noah's Arks and doll's houses which
filled the back of the window, opened the door and
took a closer survey of him, unnoticed by Dick.
This customer was quite as remarkable as he
seemed to find Dick, indeed, there seemed something
more curious in a great, gaunt, old man with grey
moustaches and deep lines of thought and care about
his face, spending nearly an hour in minute inspec-
tion of wax dolls in a shop, than in a young man
standing a few minutes outside the window.
This customer had declined to have anything to
do with the smiling young women behind the counter,
who generally found themselves very acceptable,
A VISIT TO BRISTOL. 149
especially to gentlemen customers ; and he had
demanded the presence of the master of the shop,
who was not nearly so used to attending to purchasers,
and had frequently to appeal as to prices and varieties
to the giggling young shop-women, who were much
amused at the business-like and minute review and
comparison of nearly every doll in the shop which
this strange old man went through before he selected
two dolls which satisfied his requirements.
He then proceeded to give orders for the dressing
of these two dolls, still giving his instructions to the
master of the shop, who, being young and unmarried,
was much confused at the scarcely repressed laughter
of the two girls, who were entirely ignored by the
old man, and who listened with intense amusement
to the blundering and unscientific* language in which
these two ignorant men-folk discussed the clothing
of the dolls.
The arrangements were nearly concluded when
Dick's face appeared at the window, and when Tip
Cat, for he it was, came out into the street, the young
man was just turning listlessly away. The two
men met face to face, but Dick's thoughts were too
far away just then from Slowmill to recognise any
one from there, even indeed, if he would have known
15 TIP CAT.
Tip Cat again, having only seen him once, and that
four months ago.
Those strange light eyes of Tip Cat were very
observant and the dull, dejected look in Dick's face
struck him at a glance, and without any intention of
spying on him, or interfering with him in any way,
he turned when he had gone a few steps and followed
him, keeping him in sight through several streets,
along which he noticed that Dick went in an object-
less way, stopping now and then at a shop window,
and then wandering on again. Was he ill ? Had he
been drinking ? But just as this doubt entered his
head, Tip Cat saw Dick quicken his step and rouse
up and pull himself together, and give a look up at
the smoky sky overhead, and the next minute he
had turned into a shop at the corner of the street.
What shop was it ? Tip Cat wondered, but as he
came nearer recognised it by the three golden balls
over the door. " What does this mean ? " said the
old man to himself, as he turned away. " Nothing
good ! Poor little Letty ! "
NOTICE TO LEAVE. 151
CHAPTER XIV.
NOTICE TO LEAVE.
WHEN Dick got back to Slowmill late that night,
he found Mrs. Tysoe sitting up for him with her
nightcap on, and rather a martyr-like aspect, and she
looked very narrowly at Dick as he came in, having
a general idea that coming in after twelve was usually
accompanied by unsteady gait and indistinct utter-
ance, and a tendency to set the house on fire, and it
was on this ground that she had declined Joe's offer
to sit up and let her go to bed, as she could not have
slept a wink with the fear of being burnt alive in her
bed.
But Dick only looked very tired and worn out, and
he was so penitent for having kept her up, that her
resolution to speak a few motherly words to the
young man on the error of his ways was quite for-
152 TIP CAT.
gotten, and she was only anxious to get him a little
supper, as he was obliged to confess, on being ques-
tioned, that he had had nothing to eat since that bit
of bread he had taken from the dinner-table in the
middle of the day.
To save trouble she spread the supper in the back
parlour, and Dick, when he came down to it, brought
down the bill and the little pile of money to pay it.
" Bless my heart ! you needn't have troubled," Mrs.
Tysoe said, " at this time of night too. I thought
you'd alet it bide till next week, so when you didn't
settle it Saturday night, I thought 'twould just be"
carried forward to next account."
" It won't do for me to get into debt, Mrs. Tysoe ;
it's as much as I can do to pay a week's bill, so I'm
sure I couldn't a fortnight's."
Mrs. Tysoe laughed ; she always laughed at any
reference to Dick's great poverty, as if it were an
amusing fiction he liked to keep up, in which it was
necessary to humor him. But she did not laugh at
Dick's next remark, but sat in stony silence, only
the quivering of the frills of her nightcap revealing
the agitation of her feelings.
" I want to thank you," Dick said, " for all your
kindness to me and the little girls, and to tell you
NOTICE TO LEAVE. 153
that, much to my regret, I must give you notice to
leave at the end of the week. Saturday is the right
day for giving notice, I know, so we shall not leave
till Saturday, week ; but I thought I had better tell
you as soon as my plans were settled."
" Then you're going back to London, and have
come back into all your property ? There ! if I
didn't always say you would. It was only this very
blessed day as I was saying to Mrs. Jones as no one
couldn't look at you and think as you'd be long at
Burgess's, as 'twere for all the world like putting a
silk patch on a cotton gown. Dear ! dear ! dear ! and
all you've asaid about being so poor, when I warrant
you knowed all along how it would all come right.
And those pretty little dears, so contented and happy,
and as pleased to ride with Joe in his cart as if he'd
been a coach and six ! "
Mrs. Tysoe was getting quite tearful and hysterical,
and her words came so rapidly that Dick could not
edge in a word for some minutes to enlighten her as
to the very different cause of their leaving.
" But I'm not going back to London, Mrs. Tysoe,
and I never shall come into any property ; and I
think Mr. Lupton would tell you I'm a very poor
patch indeed at Mr. Burgess's, and I may think my-
154 TIP CAT.
self lucky if I don't get the sack. No ; the truth of
it is, we can't afford to stop here, and I must try and
find cheaper rooms. No, you must not offer to lower
the rent, for you do not ask a penny too much ; only
you must find lodgers better off than we are and who
won't give you so much trouble."
There was a strange convulsion of feeling to be
read in Mrs. Tysoe's face just then, if Dick had not
been too weary and down-hearted to read it. One
moment she was inclined to bridle up and take of-
fence, and talk of not giving satisfaction ; the next
to dissolve into tears and beg them to stop at any
terms, as she was " as fond of them two children as
her own flesh and blood." One moment the darkest
suspicions of Dick crossed her mind, and the next
the most pitiful, motherly feeling for him and the
little girls. Now she thought only of the dulness she
should feel without Letty and Sybil, and now, of the
brother of the dissenting minister, who wanted apart-
ments, and who was a quiet Christian man and a
traveller for the wholesale oil and colourman with
whom Joe dealt, so that he was likely to be a very
advantageous lodger.
" And may I ask," she said, at last, stiffly, " where
you'll find cheaper rooms, where you'll get as well
NOTICE TO LEAVE. 155
done by as you've done here ? though I say it as
shouldn't."
" Nowhere, and I don't expect it. You've spoilt
us, Mrs. Tysoe, and I don't know how Letty and
Sybil will get on without you."
His voice was a little husky as he spoke, and Mrs.
Tysoe's heart softened at the sound.
" Poor little dears ! " she went on, " they're not
of the sort to rough it. Miss Letty ain't strong, the
leastest thing upsets her, and Miss Sybil have a
nasty wheezing at her chest if she ketches a bit of a
cold, as wants seeing to keerful if you wants to rear
her. You say as your ma did'nt die in consumption,
but you marks my words as some of your folks did
some time or other, and it's sure and certain to come
out in them little sisters of yours if they're not well
looked to."
Poor Dick did not find these gloomy forebodings
very reassuring, but he tried to take a cheerful view
of the matter. " At any rate they are both very well
now."
Mrs. Tysoe shook her head ominously, and sighed.
" There's nowhere in Slowmill as I can think of as
is' fit for you. There's Mrs. Jolly's, but she's a deal
too fond of a glass, and them's not the sort to have
156 TIP CAT.
the care of children ; and Mrs. Laws is that dirty, as
I couldn't eat a mossel in her house were it ever so.
But there ! perhaps you've found what you want, and
don't need any advice from me."
" Indeed I do, Mrs. Tysoe. If you don't stand
our friend, I don't know who will." And then Dick
unfolded his plan of the Ricketts's cottage.
Mrs. Tysoe was, as I have said, no great walker,
so, though she had lived all her life in Slowmill, and
that life had extended to sixty-five years, she knew
very little of the neighborhood, and Dick was rather
relieved to find that she did not quite know which
was the Ricketts's cottage, and that his description,
quite unintentionally, conveyed to her mind an idea
very superior to the humble reality.
She had seen old Ricketts ; he had dealt with
them for years, which was greatly in his favor, and
she had heard tell that his Missus was a decent, clean
sort of a body.
" But she ain't never been used to gentlefolks'
ways ; and who's to look after the children's hair,
I'd like to know, and brush it and do it out as have
took me sometimes half an hour between the
two ? "
Dick shook his head wearily. He knew better
NOTICE TO LEAVE. 157
even than Mrs. Tysoe did, of how little hairdressing
or anything else, Mrs. Rickett's rheumatic hands
were capable.
" We must make the best of it," he said, " and I
must do lady's-maid now and then. We can but try
it for a week or two, and see how we get on. But
I must not keep you up any longer, or you will be
only too glad to get rid of us."
" Well, it must be getting late," said Mrs. Tysoe :
" but Joe he've taken the clock up to his room, as
his watch have stopped, so I don't rightly know the
time."
Dick's hand went involuntarily to his waistcoat
pocket.
" Bless and save us ! Where's your watch ? " asked
Mrs. Tysoe, as his hand fell and his face changed
color.
" I left it in Bristol," stammered Dick, " to to
be mended." Poor Dick, it was the first time he
had missed the watch, and with that first impulse of
a wounded creature to hide its hurt, he had told a
falsehood about it and such a poor little pitiful un-
truth that deceived no one, for Mrs. Tysoe stood
looking at him with consternation and horror.
" Why, you've never been and "
158 TIPCAT.
" Good-night," he said, irritably. " I'm tired to
death, and so I expect are you ; " and he left her,
looking after him and murmuring, " He's been and
Who'd 'a'thought ? Poor lad ! poor lad ! He
might a'told me first, and I'll warrant as he didn't
get half as he ought for it ! And 'twere such a
beauty ! And 'twould, a'been nice for Joe. Dear !
dear ! 'tis a terrible pity ! "
Neither Mrs. Tysoe nor Dick slept much that
night, and Dick looked so dilapidated when he
turned up at the office that Mr. Burgess was corn-
firmed in his opinion, that the day before had been
the first step in a course of dissipation ; and, as he
passed through the outer office, Mr. Macintosh pre-
tended to take a long draught from a roll of paper
on his desk, and then pointed over his shoulder to
Dick's retiring figure, and winked at the office boy,
who went into an irrepressible burst of merriment at
this refined and elegant joke.
The morning's work had never seemed so long
and tiresome to Dick before, or Mr. Burgess so fidg-
ety and exacting ; and when he came home to din-
ner, he found Letty and Sybil sitting up with very
serious faces and red eyes, and following him about
with anxious, deprecating little looks that in his pres-
NOTICE TO LEAVE. 159
ent nervous, irritable condition, made him, for the
first time in his life, almost cross to them.
But the culminating point was reached, when both
the children refused to take a second helping, and he
caught Letty making signs to Sybil not to take a
second piece of bread and giving her part of hers
instead.
This was more than he could bear, and getting up
suddenly, leaving his dinner unfinished, he went out,
telling them to go on without him, as he wanted to
walk before he went back to the office.
He could not be angry with the little girls, but he
could not endure it. It was plain that Mrs. Tysoe
had been talking to them. What talkers women are !
What an idiot he had been not to tell her to hold
her tongue ! The only comfort he had had was that
the children were happy and light-hearted, and well.
He had meant to make the new move appear a pleas-
ant change to them, like going out of town in the
summer, and to treat it all like a picnic and a piece
of fun.
He had taken the way towards Tipton Grange,
and as he passed the stile leading to the farm, he
did not, notice that Tip Cat was standing near it,
who, however, saw the young man pass and came to
160 TIP CAT.
much the same conclusion as Mr. Burgess and his
clerks had done, from the look of his white, troubled
face and heavy, anxious eyes.
He also saw a little figure that was timidly follow-
ing Dick at a distance, making a run now and then
to keep him in sight, and giving such a piteous, little
out-of-breath sob as she passed the stile, that Tip
Cat made a stride forward, as if he would have
caught the little thing up or punished that brute of
a brother who went walking on, leaving the little,
white-faced, delicate sister to hurry after him in all
the heat and dust of that Midsummer day.
Kaiser, too, was indignant at the sight, and instead
of restraining himself, as his master had done after
the first impulsive stride, he leapt the stile and
reached Letty almost at one bound, whining and
licking her tearful little face, and circling round her
and, taking a corner of her pinafore in his white
teeth, pulled it gently as if to remind her that the
right way to Tipton Farm was over the stile.
But Letty was not to be diverted from her pursuit
of Dick and she tried to push Kaiser away, but
Kaiser had not been a sheep-dog for nothing, and he
thought he knew his duty too well to let this little
stray lamb wander any further out of the way and
NOTICE TO LEAVE. 161
he kept firm hold of her pinafore till Dick had disap-
peared round the corner of the road, and was quite
ouc of sight.
And then Letty broke down altogether, and burst
into such a torrent of sobs, that Kaiser, utterly be-
wildered, let go of her, and turned up his head and
howled out of very sympathy. It was the very best
thing he could have done to make up for the mistake
he had made, for the sound reached Dick's ears, and
the next moment he re-appeared at the turn of the
road, and to his great surprise saw Letty, whom he
imagined at home with Sybil, apparently struggling
with a big, savage-looking dog.
It did not take half a minute for Dick to reach
the scene of action and snatch Letty up in his arms
and give Kaiser a most undeserved whack with his
stick, which that animal might have been inclined
to resent, if an imperative whistle from the other
side of the hedge had not called him off at that very
minute.
But Dick and Letty sat on the green bank by the
roadside under the elm trees and comforted one
another, for Dick wanted comfort every bit as much
at his Jittle, sobbing, trembling sister, and nothing
seemed to soothe him so much as her arms clinging
1 62 TIP CAT.
round his neck and her damp cheek pressed to
his.
They neither of them noticed the Grange carriage
and its sleek, grey horses passing by, nor Mrs. Viv-
*
ian's curious scrutiny through her gold eye-glasses.
. " Who are they, Kathie, ? " she said to the girl at
her side. "I don't seem to know their faces.
What a pretty child ? "
"I didn't see them, Auntie, but I daresay they
belong to one of the cottages in the lane."
Dick was late at the office that afternoon, he had
no watch to tell him the time now, and besides it
took some time to quiet Letty's convulsive sobs, and
soothe her troubled little heart into composure and
take her back to Mrs. Tysoe's ; and Mr. Lupton
gave a little sneer about punctuality when he came
in, and Mr. Burgess was snappish, and out of temper
but Dick did not feel nearly as bad as he had done in
the morning, or as if he would like to knock his head
against the dingy office wall and have done with it all.
" And, Sybil, " Letty said, between the turns of
the coffee-grinder, that afternoon, " I've promised
Dick ever so faithful that we'll always eat as much
as we possibly can, and take two helpings at dinner,
for he bcvys if we don't it will just break his heart."
THE FLITTING. 163
CHAPTER XV.
THE FLITTING.
DICK was very glad when that last week at Mrs.
Tysoe's was over. Mrs Tysoe was kindness itself,
but kindness with tearful eyes and gloomy forebod-
ings, and rather a resentful manner, as if Dick's
poverty were somehow a personal affront to herself.
It was quite a relief to Dick when he heard that
negotiations with the Christian commercial traveller
were going on favorably, and that the Tysoes' lodg-
ings would not be vacant for more than a couple of
days after he left, but even this desirable arrange-
ment could not be mentioned without a sigh, and
nothing could induce Mrs. Tysoe to take a cheerful
view of anything, though Dick and the little girls,
after that first despondency, found a good deal that
was pleasant in the prospect.
Dick had not only to endure a good deal from his
old landlady but also from his new one, who was at
164 TIP CAT.
ways starting some fresh panic and insuperable
difficulty, which required sometimes hours of the
most vigorous and hopeful persuasion from Dick to
counteract.
" She's a pore sperritted crittur." her husband would
say, waylaying Dick as he came out of the office at
dinner-time to convey some alarming piece of in-
telligence. " She ain't slept a wink all night ; and
she woke me at two, and she says, says she, ' There
ain't a warming-pan in the place, and most like
they're all a' used to it every night of their lives,' says
she."
As this difficulty was suggested under a blazing
sun, with every probability of sunstroke, and Ricketts
constantly applying his red-cotton handkerchief to a
very moist forehead, a warming-pan did not seem a
very immediate necessity.
Another time it was a more important difficulty.
The four- post bed allotted to Letty and Sybil had,
for some reason best known to itself, sat down like
a cat during the night, and the old woman was in
despair at the idea of what might have been the
result if the children had been in bed at the time.
But Dick and Ricketts together restored the bed-
stead to its original position and prevented any
THE FLITTING. 165
chance of its repeating its eccentric behavior, and
when once Dick had taken to a hammer and nails, he
developed quite a talent for carpentering, and put up
a rail for the children's towels and some pegs for their
frocks to hang on at an easier distance from the
ground than those at Mrs. Tysoe's, and a shelf or two
in a recess.
The only thing he found it necessary to supply was
a bath for the children, as he unearthed a big, wooden
tub from an outhouse that would do nicely for him.
He undertook to fill the baths himself every even-
ing, for there was no pump, but only an open well,
out of which water was drawn in a bucket by means
of a long pole, and Mrs. Ricketts looked rather
aghast at these preparations for much washing, which
her new lodgers seemed to consider quite as necessary
a part of life as eating and sleeping.
Dick spent most of his evenings over at the cottage
that week, and generally Letty and Sybil went with
him, assisting, with much bustling, in the arrange-
ments. At any rate they could not starve, as Dick
provided that a plentiful supply of milk should
be sent every morning from the nearest farm, and
home-made bread and butter from the same source,
and the rest of the food Dick could bring with him
1 66 TIP CAT.
every day from the town, or Mr. Tysoe would supply
on his weekly call.
The thing that most preyed on Dick's mind was
the children's toilets. He had gained a little ex-
perience since they came to Slowmill, but he very
much doubted his capability when there was no longer
Mrs. Tysoe to appeal to in an emergency, and when
one evening he made an experiment in doing Sybil's
hair, such screams followed the first application of a
comb to the bright curly tangle, that he gave it up
in despair, and wondered if Mrs. Tysoe would let
them come in two or three times a week to have their
hair dressed by her, and try and make shift on the
other days.
Letty thought it was very naughty of Sybil to
scream and run away when Dick combed her hair,
and offered her own head to be operated on, setting
her lips with the determination of a martyr that no
suffering should wring a sound from her, but Dick
would not put her to the test, and~ he soon forgot
all about it, and wondered why Letty sat with her
arms folded on the table and her chin resting on
them in deep thought, and still more when she drew
a chair in front of the fireplace and mounted on it
and took a long look at herself in the little mirror.
THE FLITTIA'G. 167
" What a vain little puss it is," he said, laughing,
and thinking that sweet, little, wistful face was some-
thing to be vain of.
But Letty flushed all over to her finger-tips at his
words, and jumping down, ran and hid her hot
ashamed little face on his shoulder.
" I was thinking," she said " I was wondering,
Dick, if you would love us quite as well every bit
not a tiny bit less if Sybil and me was ugly
quite ugly like boys you know."
Dick laughed. " Are boys always so ugly, Letty ? "
"Don't laugh, Dick. I want you to say, really
and truly, if we was ugly and horrid-looking little
girls, would you love us ever so much as you do
now ? "
She was so earnest and serious that Dick did not
laugh again, but took the sweet little face between
his hands and looked into the great clear eyes.
" You never could be ugly or horrid to me, Letty -,
and I could not love you less if I tried."
This seemed to satisfy her, and she got down and
ran away.
The next day, when Dick came out of the office,
the little girls were not waiting for him at the corner,
and he felt a little surprised, as he knew this was
1 68 TIP CAT.
not the day for Mrs. Tysoe's cart to go out, and the
children had told him, \\ith some mystery at dinner,
that they were not going to Tip Cat's, as they had
something else to do.
Neither were they in the shop, nor looking out
at the sitting-room window ; and though tea was
ready when he got in, there was no sign of Letty and
Sybil. He called them, but received no answer, and
took up a paper to read till they made their appear-
ance.
But presently he became aware that some one
was outside the door, which stood a little ajar ; it
moved slightly on its hinges and the handle turned as
if a hand were on it outside and he heard a whis-
per.
" Letty," he said, "is that you ? Make haste , I
must be off to the Ricketts' after tea."
But at the first word he heard a rush away
from the door and down the passage to their bedroom.
He thought it was some game, and fell into what
he supposed the humor of it.
" Well," he said, aloud to himself, (: I suppose
Letty and Sybil have gone out to tea, so I must
begin."
THE FLITTING. 169
Again the steps came stealing along the passage
and again hesitated at the door, and this time Dick
got up very quietly and went on tip-toe to the door,
and, before the children had time to run away, threw
it open.
But instead of the burst of laughter that he ex-
pected to end the joke, the children gave a cry and
rushed at Dick, and getting behind him, held on to
his arms and coat, so that he could not turn.
" Oh, Dick, don't look at us ! You promised you
would love us just the same, and we never could
have done our hair ourselves ! And Sybil couldn't
help screaming when you combed it, and Mrs.
Tysoe said it would be a good thing Oh Dick !
don't don't ! "
For Dick had them by this time well in view, and
was crying yes, actually crying over two little
cropped heads.
The next day the children came back from Tip
Cat's in the greatest state of satisfaction. Three
things had happened which had pleased them, and
they could hardly tell which was the nicest.
First, Tip Cat had never even noticed that their
hair wats cut short, and when they told him, said
they looked more than ever like the Letty he had
170 TIP CAT.
known long ago. Then he told them that the cor-
poral nearly always came from the town by way of
the Rickett's cottage, and should call for the children
just the same. The children were both surprised
and pleased to find that old Ridge came that way, for
it had been one of their objections to the Ricketts'
that it was so far from Tip Cat's and that they should
never be able to go there, and Dick too, wondered
that Ridge should care to go quite two miles out of
his way, or his master to send him.
But the third thing was after all the best. " For
what do you think we found, Dick, in the front room
on a table ? Two beautiful wax dolls, quite as large
as Rosabel ; you remember Rosabel, don't you, Dick ?
and both exactly alike, with curly golden hair and
blue eyes, and lovely clothes, all to take off and on,
and white frocks, one with a red sash and the other
with a blue, and hats and cloaks, and shoes, and
socks. Tip Cat was quite as much surprised as we
were, and so was the corporal, but he said he thought
they must be meant for us to play with when we
came to see him. Wasn't it odd, Dick, for we had
been telling him only a little time ago what beauti-
ful dolls we used to have in London, and that we
had none now because we were poor, and how we
THE FLITTING.
played with a stuffed rat instead, and had got quite
fond of it, only it always had to be a baby in long
clothes because of its tail."
Joe Tysoe was quite upset at the idea of losing his
two little play-fellows, and would willingly have re-
duced the rent to any extent, or have gone without
altogether if Dick would have agreed to stop on
those terms, but when he found that Dick was not
to be persuaded to remain rent free, he did all he
could to make the new quarters comfortable, and
helped largely in the moving, only stipulating that
the little girls should come at least one day in a
week for a drive with him, and now and then to have
tea and help grind the coffee.
The move was accomplished on Saturday, when
Mr. Tysoe came in from his rounds and could take
them and their belongings in his cart, and Mrs. Ty-
soe gave them a grand farewell tea, and packed a
basket of groceries to start them with, treating them,
altogether as if they were going to a desert island,
where none of the necessaries of life were to be pro-
cured an idea which rather pleased and excited the
little girls, who had found a copy of the Swiss Family
Robinson among Tip Cat's books, and were having it
read to them by the corporal when, as sometimes
172 TIP CAT.
happened, Tip Cat was out, and they were left with
the old soldier for amusement at Tipton Farm.
It was a beautiful June evening, and the haymak-
ing was at its height, and Mr. Tysoe's cart, in the
narrow lanes that led to the Ricketts' cottage, had
every now and then to press close to the hedge to let
great, loaded, yellow wagons lumber by, and the usu-
ally quiet meadows were lively with the voices of
the copper-coloured haymakers, tossing and raking
and carting, or the swish-swish of the scythes going
like clock-work, laying low the rippling, brown-topped
grass in sweet-smelling green swathes, or the musi-
cal click, click of the whetstones sharpening the
scythes.
Old Ricketts even had been pressed into the ser-
vice, as all hands were wanted to carry the hay in
the great meadow near his cottage, and Letty and
Sybil could hardly stop to say good-bye to Joe Tysoe,
so anxious were they to run off and make their first
essay at hay-making ; and when Dick had unpacked
and settled in as well as he could and went out to
find them, they were up on the top of a load with old
Ricketts, on their way to the rick-yard, promising to
come back in what they call in those parts the " leer"
wagon, and Dick, finding a spare rake, fell to and
THE FLITTING.
worked with a will, and was quite surprised to find
what a cure hard work is for the dismals.
It was altogether a promising beginning, and the
farmhouse bread and butter and milk for supper was
so nice that they none of them noticed the roughness
of the serving up, and Letty and Sybil were asleep
as soon as their heads touched the pillow, and did
not even hear Dick filling their bath.
174 TIP CAT.
CHAPTER XVI.
TEA AT THE GRANGE.
JUST a month had passed since they left Mrs. Ty-
soe's, and it was the middle of July, and one Satur-
day afternoon Dick was sitting on that same little
plank bridge where he had sat the first Sunday after-
noon. There was something about that particular
spot which invariably brought Kathie Dumbleton
back to his mind. Not that it needed any particular
place to do that, for Dick had to be very strict with
himself to keep that sweet face of hers from coming
between him and his writing in Mr. Burgess's room,
or from appearing constantly amid the foolscap and
pink tape on Mr. Luptons desk ; but as he thought
it his duty to chase away day-dreams in office hours,
and not to give way to them too frequently when he
was with Letty and Sybil, he considered that he
might now and then indulge himself in them, and so
TEA AT THE GRANGE. 175
occasionally he would come to that little wood, and
sit there while the children went on to see Tip Cat,
or played down by the water.
That month had been successful on the whole,
quite successful so far as living within their income
was concerned, but even now he was not able to save
out of it, for Mrs. Ricketts was no manager, nor was
Dick, so between them they muddled away the money,
it was difficult to say how. Besides this, he found
that the walk backwards and forwards told seriously
on his boots, and he was obliged to get a new pair,
which made a dreadful hole in his money, and led him
to wonder how working men can ever keep themselves
and large families in boots out of fourteen shillings
a week, or sometimes less.
He ought to be satisfied, he told himself, with the
past month ; of course there had been drawbacks,
that was only to be expected ; the days were not al-
ways bright and cheerful with haymaking, the hay
was carted off and the fields left bare, and cattle
turned in, and the haymakers disappeared, and the
country returned to its usual quiet ; there were wet
days When the children could not stir beyond the
porch, and found the time hang heavy on their hands
as they counted the raindrops from the eaves ; there
176 TIP CAT.
were days when Mrs. Ricketts was so bad with rheum-
atism that she could not do anything, not even boil
a potato for the little girls' dinner, and Dick, coming
in one evening, found they had only had bread and
cheese in the middle of the day.
He did not come home to dinner as he had done
at Mrs. Tysoe's but took something in his pocket,
and made a substantial tea when he got home in the
evening. He thought it was a great economy, this
saving a dinner in the middle of the day, not reckon-
ing how he was letting himself down, or noticing that
he was not so much up to the mark as he used to be,
was sooner tired, and less inclined for exertion. But
after that day when the children had nothing but
bread and cheese, Dick provided that it should never
happen again, and he developed quite a talent for
cooking, and broiled chops and poached eggs, and
even made puddings, in a manner that quite surprised
Mrs. Ricketts, whose one idea was a greasy fry,
which was fatiguing after a time.
There were difficulties now and then over the
children's clothes, little repairs that wanted to be done
to tapes, buttons, and gathers. Mrs. Ricketts was
willing enough, but her working powers at the best
had been limited to what she called " gobblefying,"
TEA AT THE GRANGE. 1^^
and now her fingers were so twisted and cramped
that it was not often she could hold a needle.
Dick's shirt-buttons, too, came off in a most dis-
tracting way ; he had long ceased to be critical over
the washing of shirts and collars, but buttons cannot
be disregarded, and he sometimes thought, the laun-
dress must pick them off on purpose, and regard them
as her lawful perquisite.
That day when he came home, for on Saturday he
was home by three o'clock, he found one of his shirts
laid out with great pomp on his bed, and became
conscious that there was some excitement connected
with it, as the little girls followed him up stairs, and
stood watching to see the effect produced upon him
when he saw it. It was rather crumpled, and his
first idea was that the children had been trying their
hands at ironing, and had been experimenting on
his shirts. But on further examination he observed
that a very large pearl button had been sewn on the
front with apparently black cotton, and a little spot
of blood underneath testified that it had been a
work of difficulty, if not of danger.
" Oh ! Dick, how do you think it looks ? "
" Oh ,! Dick, it took us all the morning, and we was
so afraid it wouldn't be done before you came in ! "
178 TIP CAT.
" Oh ! Dick, you'll put it on at once, won't you,
to see how it feels ? "
" It wasn't black cotton, Dick, only it took us
such a long time to thread the needle, and the cot-
ton will get so dirty ! "
" It was Sybil's finger that bled."
Nothing would satisfy them but that Dick should
put on the shirt at once, and when he came down
with it on, he was obliged to unbutton his waistcoat
to assure them of the fact, and they were much
pleased with the effect, and were quite sorry that
Dick's waistcoat buttoned up so high as to conceal
the work of art.
Dick had, to tell the truth, found some difficulty in
forcing the button through the buttonhole, which
was not intended to allow the passage of so large a
body, and it was not made more easy by the button
having been sewn on not immediately beneath the
hole, but he declared it was highly satisfactory, and
they surveyed it with honest pride.
Dick was smiling to himself as he thought of this,
as he sat on the bridge that afternoon, the children
having run on to see if Tip Cat were at home, chiefly,
Dick was persuaded, that they might tell him of this
morning's industry, and perhaps to offer to operate
TEA AT THE GRANGE. 17.9
on his and the corporal's shirts but they had promised
not to be long, as they were to go home to tea.
He remembered having told Kathie Dumbleton of
his two little sisters, and how amused she had been
at some of their doings and sayings. Ah ! who was
talking to her now ? Who might be calling up a
blush to her fair cheek, or a smile to her soft eyes ?
Who might be listening to the low, gentle voice ?
Ah what luck some fellows had ! But for him
never, never again ! And, as these despairing
thoughts passed through his mind, a step sounded
on the path, and a girl's figure came towards him
through the soft, chequered lights and shadows of
the wood, and Kathie Dumbleton herself stood there
holding out her hand, and saying, " How do you do,
Mr. Lucas ? I had no idea you were in this neigh-
borhood."
Dick stumbled to his feet in a strange bewilder-
ment. Was it a dream, or an apparition, or a mirage
like thirsty travellers see cool water and green
trees in the scorching desert? Could it be true,
and that she should recognize him in his threadbare
coat, greasy at the elbows and frayed at the wrists ?
He was keenly conscious of his old boots and crum-
pled wristbands, while she only noticed that the
180 TIP CAT.
sunny faced lad she had met last year at Oxford had
grown into a handsome, striking looking man, whose
face had gained in strength and thought, if it had lost
something of the freshness and brightness.
After the first moment of intoxicating delight, a
feeling of chill disappointment and embarrassment
overwhelmed Dick, while Kathie felt puzzled and a
little bit uncomfortable at his evident agitation, at
his eyes that said too much, and his lips that said
too little. The fact \vas they were re-opening this
love story of theirs at different parts. With Kathie
it was only in the opening numbers, and she was not
quite sure if it would turn into a romance after all,
'or if it might not be merely a pretty sketch of Oxford
Commemoration, and not even " to be continued in
our next." She had liked Dick very much, and had
thought of him very often since, and had even kept
a certain little bunch of wild flowers, picked by the
riverside, till it was little more than hay indeed it
was only a week or two ago that she had thrown it
away, and then it was with a sigh and a feeling that
she was growing old and wise, and casting off school-
girl sentiment, and that it was a sad world after
all. But still, I think Dick's image was fading
a little from her memory, and that, but for that un-
TEA AT THE GRANGE. 181
expected meeting, he might have, in time, been for-
gotten.
But with Dick it was different. He had reached
the beginning of the third volume ; in those day-
dreams on the plank bridge, or when his thoughts
played him false at Mr. Burgess's or smoking in the
porch, at the Ricketts', or in Mrs. Tysoe's little
room after supper (and don't suppose that the
scenes called up in his mind were any the less fair
and romantic because his surroundings were common
and vulgar ; because there may have been bread and
cheese on the table, or a short pipe in his mouth),
he had rehearsed so many love scenes with Kathie
Dumbleton, that it was impossible for him to forget
them all, and to stand there on the bridge talking
polite commonplaces like an ordinary acquaintance.
But girls are quick readers, and, by the time Letty
and Sybil appeared running along the path towards
them, I think that Kathie was not very far behind
Dick in that pretty love story, the pages of which
they were turning together, while the sunbeams stole
through the thick elm boughs to peep at them, and
set the quiet, brown water of the stream beneath
them sparkling and dancing under Kathie's eyes,
which found it did not do to meet Dick's too often.
1 82 , TIP CAT.
As to what they said, the robin perched on the
hand-rail of the bridge, need not have turned his
head to listen so inquisitively, for it was only asking
and telling how they both happened to be there, and
what Kathie had been doing since they met, and
what news there was from Jack in India, and how
Mrs. Vivian at the Grange was her aunt, and Kathie
was often staying there.
Dick did not tell her much of himself, only that
he had left Oxford when his grandfather died, and
had come to live at Slowmill with his two little
sisters.
But Kathie had noticed one or two things by this
time, though her eyes seemed riveted to the bright-
ness where the sunbeam touched the water. She
had seen that he was shabby and sad, and that his
voice grew low and full of regret when he spoke of
the bright old days at Oxford, and a little hard and
bitter when he answered her wonders that she had
not met him anywhere, and spoke of tennis parties
and dances.
" And these are your little sisters ? " she said, as
Letty and Sybil ran up. " And what a wonderful
old dog ! Is that yours ? "
" Oh, no," Letty answered ; " it's Tip Cat's ; but
TEA AT THE GRANGE. 183
he always comes to take care of us till we find Dick;
and, oh Dick, Tip Cat wants to know if we would
like some rabbits, and he wanted to shoot some for
us, but we wouldn't let him."
" Oh, never mind the rabbits," said Dick, looking
more critically than he had ever done before at the
two little girls, and wishing that they had on their
Sunday frocks and that Sybil would not always wear
her hat on the back of her head, and that Letty's
frock was not out at gathers. " This is Miss Dumble-
ton that I have told you about. You remember
Jack, don't you ? who took you to the Crystal Palace
once ? "
" Oh, yes ; we had ices, and mine was striped.
Are you Jack's sister ? and is he here ? "
" No, I am Jack's cousin," she answered ; and
Dick thought there had never been anything so grace-
ful and lovely as the way in which she took the little
girls' hands in hers and kissed their cheeks. How
could Sybil presume to take away her sunshade and
put it up over her own little ragamuffin head, and Letty
to keep hold of the pretty hand and slip the rings up
and down the slender white fingers ; and yet Kathie
did not seem to mind, but smiled down on them as if
she liked it.
1 84 TIP CAT.
" Now, listen," she said, " for I have a plan, if
you have no other engagements this evening."
Dick laughed. What engagements wefe they likely
to have, unless it were to drink tea in the Tysoes'
little back-parlor ?
Kathie hesitated a minute, with a shy little look at
Dick, as if she were weighing propriety, and then at
the children's eager, upturned faces, as if to find an
excuse in them, and then she went on " I am all
alone this evening. Aunt Vivian has gone over to
Stanlake to spend the day, and may not come back
till eight or nine -, so won't you come and have tea
with me ? We will have it in the garden," she went
on quickly, in answer to a negative movement of
Dick's head, " and you can see the peacocks and
the Persian kittens, and the flowers."
Poor Dick ! he was sorely tempted, and the child-
ren's eyes turned to him with such a world of en-
treaty in them ! but he had an under-feeling that it
would be better, wiser, honester not to go. What
right had a shabby, struggling lawyer's clerk to go as
a guest into Mrs. Vivian's beautiful house ? What
right had poor Dick Lucas in the shadow to con-
sider himself on anything like terms of equality with
fair, happy Kathie Dumbleton, in the sunshine of
TEA AT THE GRANGE. 185
wealth and prosperity ? It was playing with edged
tools, but as far as he was concerned he had already
cut his fingers hopelessly, and would carry the scars
to his grave, but what if she should get a scratch ?
Could he trust himself to be in her company for a
blissful hour and not betray his feelings, and hurt
her gentle, tender heart by a cowardly display of his
hopeless, desperate love ?
" Thank you," he said, and he thought that his
voice sounded quite insolently cool and ungrateful,
" it is awfully good of you to ask us, but we must go
home to tea, they will be expecting us."
" Oh, Dick ! " began Sybil, but Letty was begin-
ning to understand Dick better, and to know that he
would not disappoint them without some good reason,
so she gave Sybil a little nudge to be quiet, and pre-
pared to relinquish the brilliant prospects of tea and
peacocks without a murmur.
But Kathie had no idea of giving up her plan so
easily.
" It is not very polite of you, I must say, Mr. Lucas,
to refuse my invitation when I told you I was alone,
and want some one to amuse me. But, if you .will
not come, I am sure Letty and Sybil will ; indeed, I
don't mean to let them off, so if you must go home
to tea you will have to go alone."
1 86 TIP CAT,
And with that she walked off, holding a hand of
each of the little girls, who went with her nothing
loth, but casting deprecating glances back at Dick,
hoping he would not be vexed with them.
"And Dick stood by the bridge looking after them,
hesitating for half a minute ; many a time afterwards
did he blame himself for that pitiful weakness, and
told himself that, if he only had been a man, he
would have shaken himself free from the fascination,
and not fluttered round the flame like a silly moth.
But at the turn of the path Kathie looked back at
him, and he followed her. Why not ? Why should
not he have one hour of happiness ? It would be
the last in all the long hours of dull life before him.
Just for this one evening he would forget all the
troubles and worries, and the office, and the weekly
bills, and enjoy himself. So he quickened his foot-
steps, and overtook them as they came out of the
wood into the park, and Kathie, looking back at him
with a smile, said, " That's right, you have thought
better of it ! "
There was not room for all of them to walk
abreast, and the children still had hold of her hands,
but Dick was well content to walk behind and get
a look or a word from her now and then over her
TEA AT THE GRANGE. 187
shoulder, and to tread the same path she was tread-
ing, and to take away a bramble that clung to her
dress, and to feast his eyes on her sligh'., graceful
figure, and on the sunny chestnut hair, coiled so
softly low on the milk-white neck. As for her dress,
though his eyes were never off her all the way through
the park, he could not have described it, for Kathie
Dumbleton had that rare art of dressing so that you
only saw that she was sweet and lovely, and did not
notice the details of material and trimming and
make.
Dick had no time to notice the beauty of the park
except as a background to the lithe young figure, or
to see the broad shadows on the grass, and the un-
dulating slopes, and the great spreading elm trees
and giant oaks. Presently they passed through a
little iron gate into the garden and along a shady
shrubbery path out on to a wide lawn of velvet turf
sloping up to the house, the long front of which lay
before them. There was nothing architecturally
beautiful about the house, but the warm tiles of the
roof, and the old bricks showing here and there among
the thick-growing ivy and Virginian creeper were
pleasant to the eye, and the square windows with
their heavy white frames had a friendly, homish look.
1 88 TIP CAT.
There were gay flower-beds in geometrical patterns
in front of the house, dazzling with scarlet and purple
and orange, and to the left some broad stone steps
led up to a terrace skirting that side of the house,
and on those steps a peacock was spreading his
magnificent tail in the sun and strutting with pardon-
able pride, and another looked on from the balustrade
behind. Below the terrace lay the rose-garden, but
Kathie led the way to the right where two great black
cedars stood throwing deep shade on the turf as if
entering a solemn protest against the frivolity of the
summer flowers. Some garden-chairs were standing
in the cool shadow, which was very inviting after
the stretch of hot July sun across the lawn, and here
Kathie left Dick while she went into the house to
hasten the appearance of tea ; and she took the little
girls with her, for she had seen without appearing to
notice it, how Dick had been making little hasty and
unsuccessful efforts to improve the children's appear-
ance, setting Sybil's hat straight and smoothing the
hair off Letty's forehead.
So Dick sat under the cedar in one of those com-
fortable, cushioned, garden-chairs, in which the
proper depth of seat and slope of back were calcu-
lated to a nicety, with half-shut eyes of dreamy satis-
TEA AT THE GRANGE. 189
faction, watching the peacocks strutting on the terrace
steps, and the trembling of the hot air above the
lawn and the dazzle of the flowers in the beds, from
which came heavy-laden bees every now and then,
passing with a hum of reproach to the idler. Quick-
footed, quiet servants were meanwhile spreading a
little tea-table with dainty china and shining silver,
and a gentle chocolate Dachshund came softly
waddling on very bow legs and stretched a yard and
a half length of dog at Dick's feet.
Kathie and the children came back by way of the
rose-garden, as the beautiful roses pinned to each
child's frock bore witness, but that ungrateful Dick
hardly noticed the improvement worked in their ap_
pearance, how Letty's gathers had been mended and
Sybil's hat bent straight, and how smooth and neatly
parted each bright little head was, and how the same
subtle violet fragrance hung about them as it did
about Kathie. But how could Dick have eyes for
any one but Kathie herself when he knew it was only
for an hour, and then, never, never again. Only an
hour, so the poor young fellow poisoned the pleasure
of the present by anticipation of the future, only an
hour, during which he might look at her and hear her
voice, and perhaps now and then touch her hand in
19 TIP CAT.
passing a cup, or feel her dress brush against him,
and then it would be time to go, and perhaps she
would walk across the lawn with them and kiss the
children, and then he should hold her little hand in
his just for two seconds, no more, and she would look
at him and say " Good-by," and then he would go
away and never see her again, never, all through a
long life, reaching perhaps as his grandfather's had
done, to nearly eighty, working at Mr. Burgess's day
after day, week after week, year after year, with the
one excitement and interest of his life being how he
could save a halfpenny here and a penny there on
his weekly bills. He had heard of men living on
faithful to the memory of their first love. Yes, but
surely they had something more to remember than
he had. Why, he could count the number of hours
he had spent in Kathie's company, could tell off on
the fingers of one hand how often he had held her
hand in his. And was this enough to live on for it
might be fifty years ?
But meantime Kathie was pouring out tea and
talking and laughing with the children, and Dick too
joined in, and talked and laughed, in spite of the
fifty years he was inwardly contemplating.
How delightful it was to have his cup handed to
TEA AT THE GRANGE. 191
him by Kathie, and what a pretty cup it was too,
white, lined with turquoise blue. He had never
realized how entirely he had lost all the elegancies
of life, he had hardly indeed missed them, till he
got this glimpse of them again.
Letty and Sybil of course exclaimed openly at
everything, including the cakes and bread and butter,
and the thick cream, and Dick, while he wished they
would not be so very outspoken, felt ashamed to con-
fess to himself that he felt much the same, and that
it was not only because Kathie poured out the tea
that he liked it so, but because it was in delicate
china, and was strong, and had cream in it. How
quickly the time rushed past, tea was done, and they
went to see the conservatory and the gardens, and
the children wandered away, exploring by themselves
leaving Dick and Kathie loitering in the rose-garden.
What did they talk of ? Nothing worth telling
sorts of roses, London flower-shows, colors and tints,
and sometimes they were silent, looking both of them
into the deep, crimson heart of a rose.
"Dick! Dick! where are you?" The children
are calling from the terrace, the sunset is flaming in
the sky and Dick wakes with a start and a cold sink-
ing of the heart, to the fact that it is time to go.
192 TIP CAT.
Just as he had fancied, she walks across the lawn
with them, through the shrubbery to fhe gate into
the park, and, just as he had pictured, she kisses the
little girls who cling round her with many expres-
sions of affection and desire to meet again. And
then she turns to Dick and holds out her hand and
looks at him and says " Good-bye. "
The children have run on thinking they see Tip
Cat in the distance, and Dick holds Kathie's hand
in his just as he had imagined ; but he had never
dreamt that he could do such a thing as seize both
those soft white hands in his and hold them tight
for two whole minutes, covering them with burning
passionate kisses and murmuring, " Oh ! Kathie, my
love, my love, good-bye ! "
" Why ! Kathie, child, what are you doing here ?
They told me you were in the garden, and I have
been looking for you everywhere. Did you think I
was never coming back ? You're a nice little per-
son, I must say, to leave to yourself, for I hear you
have had company, and a gentleman too, to tea !
Who was he, dear ? Simpson did not seem to know
why, Kathie darling, what is it ? "
The girl's face was very pale, even in the dark of
the shrubbery, for the sun had set an hour ago, and
TEA AT THE GRANGE. 193
her hands were limp and cold as Mrs. Vivian took
them in hers.
" It is nothing," Kathie said, " nothing, but "
and she let the kind old friend draw her head down
on to her motherly breast " but I think my heart is
broken."
194 TIPCAT.
CHAPTER XVII.
LETTY'S BIRTHDAY.
" DICK, don't people's birthdays always come on
the same day every year ? "
" Yes, Letty, I suppose they do."
"Then Mrs. Ricketts was wrong. I knew she
was, for she said that my birthday came on a Mon-
day this year, and it was on Sunday last year, so, of
course, it always will come on a Sunday, won't it,
Dick?"
Dick was lying flat on his back in the meadow,
looking straight up into the sky, and his thoughts
were so far away that it needed a strong effort to get
them back-sufficiently to allow of his unravelling the
mystery of days of the week and days of the month,
and, having done so, he prepared to let his thoughts
drift away again, but Letty had a good deal more to
say on the subject.
" Well, Dick, if it really is on Monday, do you
LE TTY ' S BIR THDA Y. 195
know it will be Bank-holiday as well, Mrs. Ricketts
says, and you won't have to go to the office ? I
wanted it to be on a Sunday so that you might be
at home, but if it is Bank-holiday I would rather
have it on a Monday, because we can play and do
something really nice. What shall we do on my
birthday, Dick ? Of course I know we are much
too poor to have birthday presents or an iced cake,
but don't you think we might do something, Dick ? "
" I don't know, Letty. Shall we stop in bed all
day for a change ? "
" I don't think I should like that, should you,
Dick ? "
" Yes, as well as anything else."
" Dick ? "
" Well ? "
" Don't you think we might go and have tea with
Kathie Dumbleton again ? "
" No."
" I met her this morning."
" Did you ? Where ? " Dick was wide awake
now, and had raised himself on his elbow.
" On the way to Tip-Cat's. She was driving, but
she stopped."
" What did she say ? "
I9 TIP CA T.
" She asked where Sybil was, and who the cor-
poral was, and where I was going."
" Anything else ? "
" No, I don't think so ; but she kissed me once for
myself and once for Sybil.
" Did she say anything about me ? " asked poor
hungry Dick.
" No ; but, Dick, she kissed me again after the
kiss for Sybil, and it was a longer, nicer, kiss than
either, and, Dick, I thought she meant it for you,"
said the cunning, loving little soul, longing to com-
fort him, and finding the way instinctively.
Letty's birthday ? Dick wondered what could be
done to celebrate it, as he turned over the few pence
that remained after the bills were paid. It used to
be so easy to get up some sort of festivity, but now,
apart from the money difficulty, he did not seem to
have any energy or invention. He only hoped
the little girls might devise something that would be
within his means and power to carry out.
But one evening when he came back from Slow-
mill, the children met him nearly half way to the
town, having been on the look-out for him all the
afternoon, going a few steps every two or three min-
tes, almost unconsciously, in their impatience, for
LE TTY'S BIR THDA Y. 197
Dick did not like their roaming about* the roads by
themselves, so they generally waited at the gate into
the field to receive him. But to-day something so
very important had happened that they quite forgot
to explain how they came to be half a mile from
home without their hats.
Letty had got a letter. So few letters came to
the Ricketts' that the old postman left the delivery
of it to the very last, so it was nearly noonday before
he hobbled across the meadow and read out the ad-
dress to Mrs. Ricketts and the little girls, just as
they were putting ori the potatoes for dinner.
" Miss Lettice Lucas,
" Mr. Ricketts,
" Near Longmead Farm,
11 Slowmill."
" That's me ; " said Letty ; " I had a valentine once
from Dick and it was directed Miss Lettice Lucas."
" But it's not Valentine's day," objected Sybil.
" No, but it's nearly my birthday and I dare say
some one has made a mistake and does not know
that it comes on Monday this year."
They both of them made a careful study of the di-
198 TIP CAT.
rection, and so did Mrs. Ricketts, putting on her large
pair of horn-rimmed spectacles to see better, but she
was not much " more of a scholard " than Letty and
Sybil, and only managed to read a few verses out of
the Bible by the sweat of her brow, and could not at-
tempt to decipher handwriting, so they resolved to
keep it till Dick came home before they opened it ;
and this was the cause of the appearance of two little
hatless girls before Dick's astonished eyes on his
way home that evening.
The letter had got quite worn at the corners and
dirty by constant scrutiny, and by being kept some-
times in Letty's little pocket and sometimes inside
the body of her frock for greater safety.
Dick was tired both in body and mind and was
not sorry for an excuse to turn into the nearest
field and sit down on the grass.
" It's not Uncle Tom's writing," he said, " nor
Aunt Maria's. Who can it be ? "
Letty opened it with due solemnity ; when you have
only had two letters in your life, you would not be
likely to resign the dignity of opening one to other
hands. Inside there was not a proper letter, beginning
" My dear Letty," and ending " Yours affectionately,"
not even a birthday card, but only rather a crumpled
LE TTY'S BIR THDA Y. 1 99
bit of tissue paper, with some printing on it, folded in
a half-sheet of note-paper with a few lines of writing
on it. Letty's face fell with disappointment, but
Dick caught it from her hand with an exclamation
of surprise. " It is a 5/. note," he said.
" For Letty's birthday, to be spent as she likes,"
was written on the paper.
It was a minute or two before Letty could realise
that the dirty piece of paper was of the same value
as five golden sovereigns, and, meanwhile, Dick was
examining the writing and the postmark to find out
who the sender could be. There was only the Slow-
mill postmark, so the little girls' strong persuasion
that it came from Aunt Maria could have no founda-
tion, even if the writing had the least resembled
that lady's angular style. So too it could not be Mr.
Murchison ; and Mr. Tysoe, with all the good-will
in the world, could not have afforded such a hand-
some present, and would not have given it secretly if
he could. Mr. Burgess ? but what did he know or
care about Letty's birthday ? Dick hardly thought he
was aware of the children's existence.
Who then could it be but Kathie ? No doubt the
children had chattered to her of this birthday, and of
their being too poor to celebrate it as they used, and
200 TIP CAT.
she had hit upon this plan of giving the children a
treat without hurting any one's pride. To be sure
the writing was more like a man's, but Dick did not
know what Kathie's writing might be like, and be-
sides it might be feigned or directed by some one.
else. So Dick made up his mind that it was Kathie's
gift, and loved her, if that were possible, all the bet-
ter for it, and would have liked to have the envelope
to treasure among his few precious keepsakes, if
Letty would have parted with it ; and he let the
children guess one person after another as the prob-
able giver Jenkins, Mr. Tysoe, Tip Cat, Mr.
Murchison, Ellen or Grace without attempting to
set them right.
But how was it to be spent ? Next day to Letty's ex-
treme delight he changed it in Slowmill for five of
the brightest Sovereigns he could get. It should all
be spent on Letty's birthday, and Letty's pleasure,
and not a halfpenny should get mixed in with the
housekeeping money on any consideration, though a
little addition to that very scanty allowance would
have made the wheels run smoothly for weeks to
come.
But Letty and Sybil soon made up their minds
what they should like to do, and their plan found
LE TTY'S BIR THDA Y. 201
great favour in Dick's eyes, for since that evening
at the Grange he had never gone anywhere except
straight to the office and back, not even to church
on Sunday, and the idea of getting clear away from
Slowmill for a couple of days seemed to Dick like
the opening of a cage door to a bird. The idea was
to go to the seaside to spend Sunday and Monday.
Letty did not mind where, as long as there were
shells to pick up, and donkeys to ride, and rocks
where they could paddle about and find crabs ; and
after much consultation Sandyshore was decided on
as fulfilling most of these requirements, and also
not being a very long journey and not being a likely
place to meet any of their former London or Oxford
friends.
No doubt it would be overwhelmed with excur-
sionists, but this would be the same everywhere,
and after all, they were excursionists themselves, so
what right had they to object to others ? They would
do it all comfortably, and to begin with, they had a
fly to the station, and the children much regretted
that the way to the station did not lie through the
town, so that the Tysoes might see their unusual
grandeur.
It gave Letty such exquisite satisfaction to think
202 TIP CAT.
that it was all being paid for out of her money and
that she' was giving Dick and Sybil a treat as well
as herself ; and at starting it was arranged that she
should keep the money, having laid out the first
shilling on a smart little blue purse, but it proved
such an anxious charge, being lost twice on the way
to the station, that they agreed that Dick had better
undertake it.
It was a beautiful day, and the children were so
happy and so gay that Dick could not brood over
his troubles as he had done of late, but found himself
laughing almost like old times, and wondered how
he could be so cheerful when he had said good-bye
to Kathie for ever.
They got down to Sandyshore by six, and had din-
ner at a little round table in a large bow window at
the principal hotel, looking out on a dancing bright
green sea, studded with boats and yachts and fishing
smacks, and more distant steamers, while in the fore-
ground was the esplanade, with a band playing, and
carriages driving past, and parties of ladies on horse-
back cantering by, and just across the road was a
stand of patient, subdued donkeys with scarlet-bound
saddle-cloths, and wicked-looking goats chewing the
cud, and surveying the crowd with evil, glassy, yel-
low eyes.
LE rry's BIR THDA Y. 2 03
Sybil and Letty were so excited by the gay pros-
pect, so different from that at Ricketts', or even the
Tysoes', that they could scarcely eat their dinner,
though Letty herself had chosen it, trying to combine
everything she had ever heard Dick say that he
liked.
And after dinner they went out and walked along
the esplanade till they had got away from most of
the crowd, and could only hear snatches of the music
now and then. The sun had set, and the gold and
crimson was dying into orange and brown, and a
little dainty crescent moon was asserting her right
to govern the night, though she was not strong
enough to draw a thread of light across the purple sea.
The tide was going down, and the cool air was laden
with the refreshing smell of the seaweed on the un-
covered rocks. It was too dark to explore those
slippery promontories and tempting pools, so the chil-
dren contented themselves with popping the brown
pods of the seaweed on the break-water, where Dick
sat smoking a really good cigar, of which Letty had
insisted on laying in a store before they left the
neighborhood of the shops, as well as chocolates and
sugared almonds for herself and Sybil.
It was very soothing and very refreshing, and the
204 TIP CAT.
soft wash and splash of the little waves on the rocks
whispered hope to a heart that was too young to de-
spair, and Dick found himself thinking, " Ah, perhaps,
some day " instead of " Never again ! never again !"
AN UNEXPECTED MEETING. 205
CHAPTER XVIII.
AN UNEXPECTED MEETING.
SUNDAY passed entirely to the children's satisfac-
tion, but much too fast, and Monday dawned as
bright a day as the most exacting Bank-holiday-maker
could possibly desire, the sky one stretch of vivid
blue, the sea of sparkling silver.
Dick went out for a bathe before breakfast, and
came .back looking as if the sea had washed the
price of meat and quartern loaves out of his head, to
find the little girls peeping out of the coffee-room
window impatient for his return, having made great
friends with one of the waiters, and ordered break-
fast at the same table at which they had dined on
Saturday evening. They were obliged to make-
haste over breakfast, as they had sent across to
engage donkeys immediately -afterwards, as the
waiter had told them that, when once the excursion
206 TIP CAT.
trains began to arrive, they would not have a chance
of a donkey, and they were very particular in their
selection, both of donkeys and boys.
They went for an hour's ride along the sands, and
might have gone much further in the time if they
would have allowed the stick to have been more
freely applied. Then they devoted themselves to
digging and castle-building and shell-finding and
paddling about the rocks, and finished a most delight-
ful morning by a row in a boat with Dick out beyond
the end of the pier. Then came dinner, and, after
that, as their train did not start till four, there would
still be two delightful hours to go and see how
their castle had withstood the encroachments of the
tide.
" Oh, Dick ! " Letty said, as she capered along
at his side, " I don't think ever any one had such a
delightful birthday ! "
Their fortifications had been constructed on the
beach near where they had been sitting on Saturday
evening, beyond the extremest limit of the esplanade,
which at Sandyshore stretches out to more than a
mile of terraces and rows of green-shuttered houses.
Osnaburgh Terrace is the last row of houses on the
esplanade, but beyond this some adventurous builder
AN UNEXPECTED MEETING. 2O?
had run up two or three detached villas of pale yel-
low, half-baked-looking brick, only divided from the
beach by a little bit of sandy garden and unpainted
iron railings. Two of these desirable residences
were to let, as declared by a large board in the
garden and bills in each of the windows ; but the
third and furthest from the town seemed to be in-
habited, for Dick had noticed in the morning a
brougham standing a long time at the door on the
road, which approached the house from the back.
Now a light invalid carriage was in the garden, and
soon after Dick had taken up his seat on the break-
water, and while Letty and Sybil were hard at work
building up the walls of their fortress, which had
already begun to yield to the assaults of the creamy,
incoming waves, a child was carried out of the house
and laid in the carriage a child wrapped and
swaddled up as if a breath of the sweet, strong sea-
air might be too much for her, and laid so tenderly
on soft cushions, and the carriage moved so carefully,
as if a sudden jerk or jar might shatter the fragile
little frame.
It was evidently a trained nurse who carried the
poor little invalid so skilfully, and that could be none
other than the mother who fussed and fidgeted be-
2o8 TIP CAT.
hind, scolding the clumsy but well-meaning nurse-
girl who was to draw the chair, in tones that some-
how sounded familiar to Dick as he listened.
His attention was called away just then to the
children, who wanted his help to finish the bridge
between their castle and the breakwater, and when
he returned to his seat the little carriage had been
brought over the rough sand heaps at the top of the
beach, and now, having gained the level, was being
pulled slowly along the sand only a few yards away
from him, with the anxious mother guiding and
steadying the carriage from behind. No wonder
that her tones had been familiar in Dick's ear,
especially in the act of scolding, for it was Aunt
Maria.
Dick gave a start and suppressed exclamation of
recognition, which was echoed by Aunt Maria ; but,
it was the child who spoke first, crying in a thin",
weak little voice, half-stifled in pillows and wraps,
" Dick ! Dick ! it is cousin Dick, mamma."
He never would have recognised Ellen in that wan,
drawn little face, with great eager eyes and close-
cropped hair and sunken temples, and lips drawn
tightly across the teeth. . But Ellen it was, and Dick's
heart gave a great bound of pity as he glanced from
AN UNEXPECTED MEETING. 209
her to Letty and Sybil such sunburnt, happy,
healthy little creatures, standing barefooted and
laughing, clinging together on their castle, while the
water creamed up round their little pink feet.
Aunt Maria made a step back from Dick's out-
stretched hand, and gave a movement as if to wave
him away ; but Dick, who set it down to her recollec-
tion of their last parting, was not to be repulsed, and
took her hand and bent to kiss her cheek, which surely
had grown wonderfully old and furrowed since last
they met. As for him, any feeling of resentment that
might have lurked anywhere in his inmost heart (and
I hardly believe any remained), vanished at the sight
of Ellen's death-stricken face, and the miserable
agony of anxiety in her mother's.
But Aunt Maria was strangely ungracious still.
" Don't ! " she said, almost flinging Dick's hand from
her. " You'd better go and take the children away.
Oh ! merciful heaven ! how well and strong they
look ! For pity's sake take them away."
What could she mean ? Dick drew back a minute,
puzzled and wounded ; but Ellen's little feeble voice
recalled him.
" Dick," she said, " don't go away. Dick was
always kind to me."
2io TIP CAT.
" Yes, my darling, yes. Dick shall stay. Oh,
what shall I do ? " cried the poor woman. " She
has hardly taken any notice of any one before, and
she looks so much brighter now. The doctor said
it would do her good to be out in the air, but I think
it was seeing you did it. Yes, she has been very ill,
and so is Grace ; but Ellen is getting better, much
better," she said, looking into Dick's face with that
hungry longing for assent, that insistence of poor souls
who do not believe what they say themselves, and
yet would try to force it on others. " But Grace is
very bad ; we are very anxious about her, and oh !"
she exclaimed, turning to the house, where a signal
was being given from the bedroom window, " she
wants me ; I must go. She must be worse. Oh,
Dick, stay with Ellen. I won't be long ; I will be
back in a minute. Don't let the children go near
her."
"They shall not disturb her," Dick said, rather
resenting the insinuation that little gentle Letty or
Sybil could be rough or noisy with the sick child, and
Aunt Maria hastened away to the house.
Letty and Sybil had become aware by this time
that Dick was talking to some one, and now came
up to the chair, standing with their tucked-up frocks
AN UNEXPECTED MEE TING. 211
and bare feet, and with spades in their hands, looking
with large, round eyes of wonder at the child whom
they could hardly believe to be the cousin Ellen with
whom they used to play and quarrel, and who had
slapped them, and been slapped in return. But
Ellen took hardly any notice of them, or of the bright-
colored pebbles and shells and seaweed which they
had collected, and the best of which they laid on the
edge of the carriage as an offering to her ; but it
was Dick's name she kept murmuring, and Dick that
her great eyes followed ; and when for a moment he
was out of sight she broke into a little, fretful, wail-
ing cry ; and when he laid his hand near hers, her
weak nerveless fingers closed round his, and would
not let him go.
The nursemaid seemed a stupid, dull sort of girl,
and in answer to Dick's questions only grinned and
scraped a heap of sand with her clumsy feet.
They must have been there a quarter of an hour,
and Dick was still holding the child's hand and say-
ing at intervals, " Poor little Ellen poor child ! "
when a gentleman, passing along the top of the
beach, stopped and looked at them. He looked like
a doctor, and seemed to be in a hurry, but he turned
and came down the beach towards them.
212 TIP CAT.
" I suppose you know," he said to Dick, " that
this little girl has had scarlet fever, and that her
sister is lying ill of it now in that house ? You
should not let those children be with her. It is so
terribly infectious."
And then he hurried away, leaving Dick hardly
taking in the full meaning of what he had said for
the first minute. He had fortunately never been
much in the way of illness, especially infectious ill-
ness ; but, of course, he knew that scarlet fever was
infectious, and that it meant danger for Letty and
Sybil ; and, drawing away his hand from Ellen's, his
first impulse was to catch his two little sisters up in
his arnjs and hurry away as quickly as possible, but
Ellen's weak, wailing cry began directly he turned
away, and he could not find it in his heart to leave
her.
What could he do ? He called the children to
some distance from the carriage, and bid them put
on their shoes and stockings as quick as they could.
"It's not time to go yet," pleaded Letty; "and
we did so want to see the waves knock down our
bridge."
" I want you to do something for brother Dick's
sake," he said, and his voice was so grave that Letty
AN UNEXPECTED MEETING. 213
said no more, but began that difficult task of pulling
stockings on wet feet as quickly as she could.
" I want you and Sybil to go steadily along the
esplanade, past the hotel and the pier, and straight
to the railway station. You know where it is, don't
you ? And go into the waiting-room and stay there
till I come. My darlings, I am so sorry, but it can't
be helped."
" May we say good-by to Ellen ? "
" No, no ! " he said, with a shudder. " I will say
it for you. I want you to go directly."
He stood watching the two little backs as they
plodded rather drearily away hand-in-hand along the
beach. He was almost afraid that Sybil was cry-
ing, and he had seen Letty's lip tremble as they
turned to go ; but the cry of " Dick, where are you
gone?" from the carriage called him back and he
took up his place again by Ellen's side. Every
moment that he sat there he realised more fully the
danger that the children had run, and felt more in-
dignant at Aunt Maria for exposing them to such a
risk; blaming himself all the time for not being
quicker to guess that it was fever that had made
such a wreck of his little cousin.
It seemed to him a long time that he sat there,
214 TIP CAT,
but it was really only a few minutes, when Aunt
Maria appeared again from the house, and Dick
rose to meet her with a world of reproach in his face.
But she had no eyes but for the child. " We
must bring her in at once," she said. " She has
been out too long."
Dick drew back. How could she be so selfish,
even in her great trouble ? But, as they began to
move the carriage, the clumsiness of the servant and
the over-anxiety of the mother made it shake and
rock, and a moan of suffering from the child called
him back.
" Let me do it," he said ; " I will steady it." And
he took the carriage carefully up the beach, and
when they reached the house he lifted the poor, little
light figure from the carriage and carried her into
the house in his strong arms.
The child seemed only half conscious by this
time, but she murmured his name, as he put her into
the nurse's arms, as if she would have thanked him.
He got no other thanks. Aunt Maria was hurry-
ing by him as he went out into the passage, without
even saying good-by ; but he stopped her.
" You should have told me " he said. " You
should have warned me of the infection."
AN UNEXPECTED MEETING. 215
" I didn't know you would be afraid," she an-
swered.
" It was not for myself," he went on : " but I have
nothing in the world left me but Sybil and Letty, and
if any harm happened to them I could never forgive
you."
" Don't be hard on me, Dick," she said, in a strange,
hard, shrill voice. " Don't be hard. Grace is dy-
ing my last baby, you know, Dick, my pretty little
Grace."
And then she was gone, and Dick passed out into
the August sunshine from the dark passage, which
seemed the very shadow of death.
He had half an hour before the train, and that
must be devoted to disinfecting as well as he knew
how. How he wished he had paid more attention to
the subject attended ambulance lectures, or listened
when scientific friends held forth ; but he had only
his own reason to guide him, and that led him to
walk quickly along the beach where the sea-breeze
blew freshest, and, when he was some way from the
esplanade, take off his coat and wash face and hands
in the sea-water. This was all he could think of or
had time to do, for he had yet to pay the hotel bill,
and fetch their bags and get to the station, to relieve
2l6 TIP CAT.
the anxiety of the two little sisters, who were watch-
ing for him from the waiting-room door, getting more
and more large-eyed and terrified as the people began
to collect and crowd the station.
They flew to meet Dick as soon as they caught a
glimpse of him, but he would not let them touch him
even now, but put them into a carriage with some
ladies, and he himself got into a smoking carriage,
and stoically endured fumes of bad tobacco and con-
versation to match, till they reached the station for
Slowmill ; and then again he put them into a fly and
mounted himself on the box, and only allowed him-
self to feel fit to touch them when they reached the
Ricketts', and he lifted Sybil out fast asleep and
carried her in, even then feeling a qualm as he thought
of the last child he had carried, and how Ellen's head
had rested on his arm just where Sybil's lay.
" What a fidgety old hen I am getting," he told
himself, " with my two little chicks."
" TIP CAT, REMEMBER YOUR PROMISE." 217
CHAPTER XIX.
"TIP CAT, REMEMBER YOUR PROMISE."
IT had been a wet day, but the weather was clear-
ing towards the evening, and the heavy grey clouds
were rolling away into the west, burying the sunset
in their great, soft masses, but leaving a clear, pearly
reach of sky in the east, with just a tinge of pink
from the invisible sunset.
There had been a good deal of rain that week since
Bank-holiday, which had mterfered considerably with
harvest operations in various parts of the country ;
but as most of the land round Slowmill was pasture,
the farmers did not much care, though, of course,
they grumbled quite as much as if all their hopes
were centred on the wheat.
Tip Cat had come out to stretch himself that even-
ing, and was leaning on the low wall in front of the
house, with Kaiser as usual by his side. That week's
218 TIP CAT.
I
rain had put an end to the summer, which had held
her own bravely till then, but now autumn reigned in
her stead, and had laid his Midas hand already on
the chestnuts here and there, turning them to gold.
Tip Cat's thoughts as he stood there were
carried back more than five-and-twenty years, to a
garden with a great horse-chestnut tree, standing on
a lawn which it littered with its bright yellow leaves,
while it filled with mock sunshine the bow windows
of a pretty country house.
It was the vicarage house where he had been a
pupil before he went to Oxford, and under the chest-
nut, before his mind's eye, stood Letty Vane, the
vicar's only daughter, holding a great yellow fan-leaf
in her hand as she talked to him. They were great
friends, though he was only a great clumsy hob-
bledehoy, and she all that was beautiful and grace-
ful and fair.
She had come out into the garden to find him, to
ask him to do her some trifling service to post a
letter or cut a pencil so small that he had forgotten
what it was.
" I always come to you when I want anything done,"
she said, " dear old Tip Cat ; I don't know what I
shall do without you."
"TIP CAT, REMEMBER YOUR PROMISE." 219
And then he had stammered out something about
being always ready to do anything she wanted.
" Shall you ? " she asked with a smile and a little
sigh, as if with a presentiment of coming trouble.
" But what if you are at the other end of the world ? "
" I would come," he answered, " if you wanted me,
even from another world."
" Silly boy," she said, and stroked his cheek with
the chestnut leaf, till he caught her hand in his.
"Will you promise," he asked, " that you will al-
ways come to me if you want anything done, or are
in any difficulty or trouble ? "
" Of course I will," she answered. " I shall come,
perhaps when you least expect it, and say, ' Tip Cat,
remember your promise."
It was more than half a joke, and it ended in a
laugh and a race across the garden to the filbert
walk, and a merry cracking of nuts and talking non-
sense, but under it all there was a seriousness and a
meaning which they both of them felt and remem-
bered.
Years had passed* since then, and Letty had
married, and gone to India and died, and had never
reminded him of his promise. She had not been
false to him, though she had spoilt his life, for she
220 'TIP CAT.
had never thought of him but as a boy and a brother
while he had loved her with the strong lasting love
of a man. In the long years of gnawing regret and
weary longing that had followed, he had sometimes
thought that if he could have done something, suf-
fered something, comforted or helped her in any way
he could have endured the loss better, but all possi-
bility of this was at an end, for she was in her grave,
and needed no help or comfort from him. How
vividly that scene in the vicarage garden came back
to him that evening ! That soft sighing of the trees
might be her voice, that leaf, that came fluttering
down, might have dropped from her hand, if he
closed his eyes he could fancy she was at his side,
saying, "Tip Cat, remember your promise."
But as he stood with closed eyes picturing that
scene, some one was, indeed, standing close by him,
some one, whose footsteps he had not heard, though
they were not as light and buoyant as they used to
be, some one looking up at him with great sad eyes,
some one, as strange chance would have it, with a
big chestnut fan-leaf in her hand.
Could it be Letty Vane come from another world
to claim his promise ? Tip Cat wondered for a mo-
ment, as he opened his eyes and looked down into
"TIP CAT, REMEMBER YOUR PROMISE:' 221
a face so strangely like his dead love's, and heard a
voice with the same soft tone say, " Tip Cat, we're
in such trouble." And then he knew that she*had
sent her little girl to claim his promise.
" We're in such trouble, Tip Cat ! Sybil is ill?
and Dick can't go to the office, so he won't have
no money on Saturday, and he wants to send me
away to Uncle Tom, and I can't go away and leave
him, and Sybil ill "
" What's the matter with her ? "
" Dick says it's scarlet fever, and he's sent for the
doctor but he hasn't come, and her head's awful bad,
and so is her throat, and sometimes she don't know
me and thinks I'm somebody else. Tip Cat," Letty
whispered, clinging to his arm which was round her,
".do you think Sybil is going to die ? You won't let
her, will you ? I can't do without her, and she's so
little, you know, too little to die."
Tip Cat held the trembling little thing close in
his great, strong arms, as if he would protect her by
main force from trouble or from death itself.
" Who is with her ? "
" Only Dick. Mrs. Ricketts is bad with the rheu-
matics, and she can't do nothing hardly, and she
cries and shakes her head when I speak to her, and
222 TIP CAT.
Ricketts is afraid that the people at the mill will
find out that she's ill, and not let him go to his work,
and he wanted Dick not to send for the doctor, as
he says they make such a fuss nowadays about things
being catching, and Dick thinks that perhaps he did
not give his message, as Dr. Lee hasn't come all
day."
" We'll go and fetch him," said Tip Cat. While
Letty had been talking his mind had been busy
forming a plan of action, and, once formed, he was
not slow to carry it out. Five minutes were enough
to harness the quick-trotting bay mare into the dog-
cart, principally with his own hands, while he gave
some clear, sharp, precise directions to the corporal,
which made that old soldier open his eyes in amaze-
ment, though he was far too well disciplined to say
a word or do anything but obey.
Letty, not being so well drilled, altogether refused
to stay with the corporal, as Tip Cat at first pro-'
posed, and broke into such an agony of tears and
sobs that Tip Cat lifted her himself into the dog-cart
and wrapped her up in a plaid, for night was coming
on and the air was damp and chill, and drove
off without another word, rattling along the road
and over the stony streets of Slowmill at a pace
" TIP CAT, REMEMBER YOUR PROMISE." 223
that made the people run to their doors and
windows to see who it could be in such a desperate
hurry.
Dr. Lee had just sat down to supper after a long
round among some of his more out-lying patients.
He had got very wet, and, having put on his slippers,
was not much inclined to sally forth again, even
though old Ricketts had been better than Dick sus-
pected, and had delivered the message, but in such
a modified and guarded manner that Dr. Lee con-
cluded that it would be quite time enough to gcrand
see the patient next morning. But when Tip Cat
arrived, and with a certain accent of command in his
voice, and a still more decided look of the same in
his strange light eyes, desired him to go without a
moment's delay, Dr. Lee called for his boots forth-
with, and left his supper unfinished, and climbed as
briskly into the dog-cart by Tip Cat's side as if he
had had no thought of any other way of passing the
evening.
He had met Tip Cat once or twice in the hunting-
field, and had heard a lot of gossip about him from
one and another, but this was the first lime he had
ever spoken to him, and he felt he was too good a
patient to allow to fall into any other doctor's
224 TIP CAT.
clutches, and that it was quite worth while to oblige
him, even at the sacrifice of his supper and night's
rest.
" Hullo ! who's this ? " he asked, as what looked
like a bundle of wraps at Tip Cat's side moved and
a face looked out at him.
" It is the other little girl," said Tip Cat, " and I
wanted to ask you what we had better do about send-
ing her away."
" Not much good now," was the reply. " Should
have been done a week ago from what you tell me.
It's too dark to have a look at her. Give me your
hand, little woman, if you have such a thing about
you under all these wraps. There, there ! never
mind, we won't take you away from brother Dick and
little sister, never fear ! "
And then Letty, quite contented, nestled her face
against Tip Cat's sleeve and dozed, only indistinctly
hearing the men's voices going on above her head,
and not heeding what they said.
Can you fancy, reader, what the past week had
been to Dick ? How, the morning after their return,
when the children had seemed as bright and well as
ever, he had laughed at his own fidgets and fears of
the night before ; how, a day or two later, he had
" TIP CAT, REMEMBER YOUR PROMISE." 22$
been quite cross with himself for fancying that Sybil
was pale, and told himself that if she were not quite
as rosy as usual it was the effect of the wet weather,
which had prevented them from going out. No
doubt it was from the same cause that she was a little
bit cross the next morning, and peevish, and cried
when Letty accidentally pushed against her ; but
when he came home in the evening, and only Letty
ran down the wet garden path to meet him, his heart
sank as he heard that Sybil had been very sick, and
was asleep on the bed. " It's biliousness," Mrs.
Ricketts said, " and she'll be all the better to-morrow."
But in the night when Dick went in once or twice to
see how she was, the child was tossing and turning
and talking in her sleep, and was hot and flushed
and restless. She seemed better in the morning,
but Dick went to the office with a very heavy heart,
and annoyed Mr. Burgess by his inattention and care-
lessness.
He found Sybil, when he got home, sitting on the
three-legged stool in front of the fire, resting such a
heavy little head on Mrs. Ricketts's knee ! and found
she had eaten nothing all day, but was thirsty and
parched. Dick sat all the evening holding her in
his arms, and put her into his bed for the night, and
226 TIP CAT.
spent most of that leaning over her and listening to
her difficult breathing and wandering talk. Happily
next day was Sunday and he was not obliged to leave
her, but oh ! how long that day seemed ; and still
longer the night that followed, for the child was light-
headed, and talked such strange baby-nonsense as
made Dick's heart ache again. Would the morning
never come, and old Ricketts stop snoring in the
room below, and begin to stir to go off to his work ?
for Dick had by this time no doubt what was the
matter, and knew that there was no time to be lost
in having a doctor, and that he ought not to go to
Mr. Burgess's, even if he could bear to leave Sybil,
and that as for what they were to live on or how the
doctor was to be paid, it must be left to the future
to prove it was no use thinking of that now.
And then came Ricketts's unwillingness to make
the illness known, and his wish to keep it dark, lest
the inspector should be down on them, messing about
with sulphur and lime and all the rest of it ; and not
letting a chap go to his work for six weeks or more,
as he did with poor Wilson as pretty nigh starved,
along of him and his whimsies. He tried to persuade
Dick the child was better, as she was quiet for a bit,
lying with her eyes half shut, breathing heavily ; but
"TIP CAT, REMEMBER YOUR PROMISE." 227
Dick knew better, and at last old Ricketts went off
grumbling, with a note from Dick to be left at the
office, and a message to Dr. Lee, which Ricketts did
not deliver till after the doctor had started for his
rounds, and which, when it reached him, would not,
as we have seen, have disturbed the doctor from his
supper, if it had not been for Tip Cat.
Then Dick began to fret and worry over Letty,
and the danger to her of slipping in and out of the
room, and sitting at the foot of the bed watching
Sybil's every movement, ready to put back the clothes
the fevered child kept throwing off, or to give her
some milk when the dry lips moaned for something
to drink. If there was only some one to take her
up to Uncle Tom ! He could not refuse to find
shelter and care somewhere for her ; and once Dick
counted out what money he had left, and told Letty
to put on her hat and take it to Mrs. Tysoe, and ask
her to take her up to London to Uncle Tom's bank ;
but Letty, who was usually so obedient and submis-
sive to Dick's slightest wish, rebelled now, and cried
and sobbed so bitterly that Dick was obliged to give
it up, only keeping her as much out of the bedroom
as he could.
As the day wore on, and no doctor came, he began
228 TIPCAT.
to distrust Ricketts more and more, and when,
towards evening, Letty disappeared, he fancied she
might have gone to fetch him, and was divided
between anxiety for the child alone in the roads in
the dusk, and a burning desire that the doctor should
come by any means before night.
Reader, do you know the look of a bedroom in
which a man has been acting as nurse ? I mean, of
course, ninety-nine men out of a hundred, for here
and there you may find a first-rate man-nurse, who
can bear comparison with the best of the woman-
nurses. They may be loving and anxious, tender and
strong, patient and gentle, but they are sure to get
the room into a hopeless muddle, as Dick had, when
Dr. Lee stood at the door with Tip Cat looking over
his shoulder.
The bedclothes were tumbled and tossed in utter
discomfort, the bedstead, which had never stood
quite even on its four legs, was propped at one cor-
ner by a chair, and another stood near heaped with
cups and plates, and the candle-stick with a tallow-
candle guttering from the draught from the door and
window. A heap of Sybil's clothes lay on the ground
near the window, and Dick sat on the bed in his
shirt-sleeves, with a pillow on his knees, on which
"TIP CAT, REMEMBER YOUR PROMISE." 229
the child's head was resting for a minute or two in its
restless, feverish tossing and turning.
There was no doubt that the child was very ill,
but it was Dick's face that struck Tip Cat most, it
looked so worn and haggard and old and full of care,
and Tip Cat turned away as the doctor entered the
room and went down into the room below with a
bitter feeling of self-reproach, that he had not heard
his old love's voice sooner, reminding him of his
promise, through this poor young son of hers, and his
two little sisters, who had sunk to greater depths of
poverty and want than ever he had dreamt of from
the merry prattle of the children, who had talked of
poverty as a bit of fun, and of their present life as
superior in every way to their old one.
230 TIP CAT.
CHAPTER XX.
TO THE RESCUE.
" MOVE her ? " Dick said, in answer to Dr. Lee's
words, which he seemed only dimly to understand.
" Move her this morning ? Is it to the hospital."
It was morning, and Dr. Lee was there for the third
time. He had gone away after his first visit, and
returned in an hour, bringing medicine and a few
sick-room comforts for the child, and managing with
a little artful arrangement, to introduce some order
into the chaotic room. Then he had gone away
again, and Sybil must have slept ; certainly Dick had,
for suddenly Dr. Lee was standing there again", and
saying that at twelve a carriage was coming to move
them all away.
" Tip Cat ? What had he to do with it ? " Dick won-
dered. He fancied he had caught a glimpse of some
one behind Dr. Lee when he first came, but after-
wards he thought it must have been only a fancy, for,
TO THE RESCUE. 231
with watching and anxiety, he got all sorts of queer
notions into his head, and saw sometimes one person,
and sometimes another, standing in the little room
now Uncle Tom, broad and burly, twisting his eye-
glass in his hand ; now Kathie, fair and gentle, to-
wards whom he started with a cry of warning against
the danger of being there.
Dr. Lee looked narrowly at the dazed, puzzled
look on Dick's face. " I shall have another patient,"
he thought, " before long, and it's a question if he
will be number two or three. It's not a hospital,
exactly," he said, " but Mr Cathcart Tip Cat, they
call him has offered his house, and went off to
Bristol last night to make all arrangements and to
get a nurse ; and he'll send a regular ambulance by
twelve to move the child."
" But I can't let him do it," Dick interrupted.
" We have no claim on him I hardly know him "
" Do you want the child to die ? "
Dick's head sunk.
" I tell you what it is," the doctor said, " he's the
most extraordinary man I ever came across, and this
is the biggest piece of generosity I ever heard of,
and you'll be the greatest fool in the world if you
make a fuss about it. It was the luckiest day of
232 TIP CAT.
your life when you came to Slowmill, and came across
Tip Cat."
And Dick, as he turned back to Sybil, wondered
to himself how what had seemed such trouble and
misfortune, could look to any one like good luck,
but he offered no further opposition ; and when the
carriage came to the door, he obeyed the doctor's
directions, and wrapped the child up in blankets,
and carried her down and laid her on the cushions
in the carriage, and got in after her with Letty, while
Dr. Lee mounted on the box with the driver.
Tip Cat did not appear on the scene at all, nor
was he visible when they arrived at Tipton Farm,
though as Kaiser's shaggy head was to be seen
watching the arrival from one of the windows, it
may be concluded that his master was not far off.
A pleasant-faced, cheerful nurse met them at the
door, looking delightfully fresh and unfeverish in her
print dress and white apron and cap, and took the
bundle of blankets very tenderly in her arms and
carried it up stairs to the large, airy bedroom in
front, which used to be empty and unfurnished, and
had often served as a play-room for the children on
a wet day, but was now turned into a sick-room that
would have satisfied the most exacting of doctors.
TO THE RESCUE. 233
Tip Cat would dearly have liked to have filled the
room with pretty furniture for the reception of his
welcome little guests ; but his own common sense
and the doctor had told him that the less furniture
there was the better ; so there were no curtains nor
carpet, and, besides the two little beds, only just
what was immediately necessary for use, and nothing
for ornament.
Tip Cat consoled himself by furnishing Dick's
room adjoining, with every comfort modern luxury
has invented, though, as subsequent events proved,
he had better have kept to the same severe style in
both rooms, as very soon those curtains, arm-chair,
and sofa had to be dispensed with.
Tip Cat's greatest difficulty had been about the
nurse, for he would have one quite to his mind ; and
at such short notice, and at such an early hour in the
morning, there was not so much choice as in the
matter of chairs and bedsteads. When at last he
found one to please him, it was very uncertain if the
situation would please her ; and when she reached
Tipton Farm and found that she was the only woman
about the place, she had half a mind to leave at once.
But Ridge was so wonderfully handy and attentive,
and Tip Cat ready, at the least suggestion of any-
234 TIP CAT.
thing wanting, to be off at any hour of the day or
night to scour the country to procure it, sparing
neither money nor trouble, so that Nurse Esther soon
got used to the unusual state of affairs, and, after a
time, liked it so well, that she was inclined to think
that households composed of women were a mistake.
She had a nice, pleasant, kind face, and strong,
young arms, and a gentle, decided way of doing things,
as if she knew what she was about and meant to do
it ; and Letty's eyes watched her longingly as she
carried Sybil up stairs, and she followed with Dick
and saw the airy, orderly room so different from
Mrs. Ricketts' and the little white bed, with the
cool, fresh pillows and bed clothes, ready to receive
the poor, little, feverish body, that had made such a
hot, tumbled hay-cock of the bed, where Dick's lov-
ing but inexperienced hands could not restore order
or comfort.
But when the door closed and left Dick and Letty
outside on the landing, Letty's full little heart over-
flowed into bitter sobs and tears. " Oh, Dick, mayn't
I be ill, too ? Oh, Dick, I'd like to be ill ! I'd like
to be ill, too, with Syby ! "
Dick, too, was feeling very forlorn, as if his work
had been suddenly whisked away out of his hands
TO THE RESCUE. 235
and he did not know what to be at ; but he gathered
Letty up into his arms and sat down on the stairs
and tried to comfort her, telling her she should stop
with brother Dick and not think of being ill ; but he
seemed to have lost his power to console her, and
his own head ached so that every sob seemed to send
a hot dart through his temples, and he only at last
sat holding her in his arms in silent misery, for what-
seemed to him quite a long time, but was really only
a few minutes, at the end of which time the door re-
opened and the nurse's cheerful, homely voice said.
" Where's my other little one ? The doctor said
I might have you both. Where's my little Miss
Letty ? "
And Letty's sobs stopped as if by magic, and her
arms left Dick's neck and stretched towards the
nurse, as if she had known her all her life.
" May I be ill, too, with Syby ? " she asked.
And the nurse answered cheerfully, " To be sure
you may, and get well with Syby, too. "
But Letty did not forget Dick, for as she went in,
clinging round Nurse Esther's waist with the nurse's
arm round her neck, Dick heard her say, " But mayn't
Dick come too ? poor Dick ! and be ill with me and
Syby ? He don't never like to be away from us."
236 TIP CAT.
" Oh, I daresay he will come too by and by ; never
you mind."
And then the door closed and Dick was left still
sitting on the stairs outside jesting his head in his
hands, feeling as if he had not energy to move ox
even think.
Here Dr. Lee found him a few minutes later when
he came up stairs, and he took him down and made
him eat and drink something, which Dick did in a
listless, mechanical way, doing just as he was told,
and then again at the doctor's suggestion, he went
up to the comfortable bed-room that had been pre-
pared for him, and, hardly noticing the comfort of
his surroundings, threw himself on the bed and fell
into a heavy, dreamless sleep.
He must have slept for some hours, for when he
woke the crimson, level rays of the sunset were com-
ing in through the window and falling full on a pic-
ture that was hung over the bed, and Dick's waking
eyes fixed themselves on this picture with a strange
sort of confused wonder. How had that picture
found its way from the old dressing case and into
that wide mounting and carved ebony frame ? It
used to be framed with pearls, he said to himself, in
the dreamy half-waking, and then all at once the face,
TO THE RESCUE. 237
that was so like Letty's, woke him with a start to
the consciousness of the present and of Letty and
Sybil, and he flung himself off the bed and stood
looking round, giddy and confused, listening for any
sounds from the next room, where Letty had chosen
to be "ill too with Syby," and quite forgot the
strangeness, that over the bed in Tip Cat's room
hung the portrait of his own young mother, smiling,
in all her girlish grace and sweetness, as she had
smiled from the circle of pearls of which he had rob-
bed her for the little ones' sake.
Some one must have been into the room while he
slept, for a bath had been prepared for him and clean
linen laid out, suggestive of old times when Jenkins
used to be proud to valet his young master, and Dick
felt more like his old self when he had bathed and
changed his clothes ; and just as he was ready, the
doctor knocked at the door and came in.
"Well," he said, "you look pounds better for your
nap. I've just come in again to see the little girls. I
don't think if I were you I would go in just now ;
they have a first-rate nurse, and she'll do all she
can for them, and seeing you may upset them, for
little Miss Letty's light-headed."
There was something in his tone that made Dick
238 TIPCAT.
turn sharply and look into his face. " Are they very
bad ? " he said. " Do you think they will not get
well ? "
The doctor turned away to avoid the eager ques-
tioning of Dick's terrified eyes, which would not
allow of any evasion as long as they met the
doctor's.
" Oh ! we won't give up hope," he said ; " but they
are delicate children. I would not go in if I were
you."
But the words were not out of his lips before Dick
had opened the door of the sick room and gone in.
Not go to them ? Keep away ? Why, it was only a
few minutes ago he had heard Letty's little voice say,
4< He don't never like to be away from us ; " and if
they were going to die, surely he must go with them
as far as he could, and hold their little hands in
death's darkness as he had so often done when night
came on and the candles were not lighted, and
childish terrors, real or assumed, filled the little ones'
minds. If they were going down into that cold river,
surely they would want him to help them. Ah, why
could he not carry them both over in his arms, as he
had so often done across the brooks and streams
round Slowmill, so that they should all reach that
TO THE RESCUE. 239
other side safely together ? Ah, that other side ! If
they were going this long journey, surely they must
want brother Dick to see them off and say good-bye.
Ah, what a world of good-byes this was !
As he opened the door he heard Letty's voice talk-
ing quick and eagerly ; but he did not need to look
at the hot, flushed face and bright, restless eyes, or
even to hear the words she said, to know that it was
the talk of delirium.
Sybil lay still, unnaturally still, Dick thought, who
had seen her tossing and turning, never quiet for five
minutes together for days. In the dim light of the
room, for the sun had set by now, the child's face
looked ghastly white and set, and the bed-clothes
seemed to fall in those motionless, sculpture-like,
solemn folds as they do over the dead.
Dick turned with a sick heart to the other bed.
Here, at any rate, there was life. The nurse was at
Letty's side, trying to sooth her excitement and keep __
the clothes over her, but she drew back as Dick ap-
proached, and gave up her place to him.
" She has been asking for you," she said, " and I
told her you were asleep."
" You should have called me at once," he said
quite sharply. " You must always send for me directly
240 TIP CAT.
if they want me and I am not in the room. Here I
am, Letty ; do you want brother Dick ? "
" Yes, I want Dick," Letty said ; " but he's asleep.
Poor Dick ! he's tired and gone to sleep. Hush, you
mustn't wake him. He'll come when he wakes. It's
Dick I want," went on the poor, little, thick voice,
while those great, bright, unrecognising eyes looked
into Dick's face, and the little, burning hands pushed
him feebly away. " I don't want nobody but Dick,
and he's asleep. Go away, please ; I want Dick."
" She does not know me," said poor Dick, turning
away with a sob.
POOR DICK. 241
CHAPTER XXI.
POOR DICK.
IT was not very long, as Dr. Lee had thought, be-
fore he had another patient at Tipton Farm. That
evening, as Dick sat down stairs with Tip Cat, smok-
ing and listening for any movement in the room above,
a messenger from the town brought up a letter that
had come to Mr. Burgess's for Dick. It bore a heavy,
black edge, and the writing was Uncle Tom's.
The whole world seemed edged with black to Dick
just then, and he opened it and glanced through the
contents, as if it were the most natural thing in the
world, that his two little cousins should both be dead,
and their mother nearly out of her mind with despair,
and as for Uncle Tom's really heart-felt words of re-
gret for all that had passed between him and Dick
and the little girls, and his acknowledgment that he
242 TIP CAT.
had acted neither justly nor generously by them, and
his assurances that things should be very different, if
they would come back to London and let bygones
be bygones, Dick read them through with indiffer-
ence, as something in which he had no concern,
something that was ages too late to do any good.
Even the almost illegible words scrawled at the
bottom in Aunt Maria's writing, " Forgive me, Dick,"
hardly moved his dulled feelings even to pity. He
had said, when last they met at Sandyshore, " if any
harm happened to the children, I could never forgive
you," but now the grievous harm had happened, the
aching in his head and heart seemed to leave no room
for anger against the cause of it, or for active for-
giveness.
" No bad news, I hope," Tip Cat said as he laid
down the letter. He felt very constrained in Dick's
company, having been for years unused to the society
of his equals, and being, moreover, troubled and em-
barrassed by Dick's gratitude ; a - d having his heart
full of sorrow and liking for the young fellow, who
every moment by some look or tone or movement re-
called the dead mother, even more than little Letty,
whose face actually more closely resembled her. He
wanted to tell Dick about his mother and explain to
POOR DICK. 243
him that anything he could do for his dead love's chil-
dren (and the most he could do seemed infinitely lit-
tle) was such a relief and happiness to his own heart,
that the gratitude should be all on his side, but he
did not know how to begin, and conversation on in-
different matters languished and easily dropped into
silence. " No bad news, I hope ? " Tip Cat said,
when the letter came, and Dick answered, " Oh, no,
not at all, thank you," as he laid the letter down, and
then remembered himself. " Yes that is, very bad
news for my uncle and aunt ; they have lost both their
little girls."
" Have they any others ? "
" No, there were only those two, Ellen and Grace."
" Bad job ! " said Tip Cat.
" Yes, they're terribly cut up. They want us to
go back to London, but I must write and tell them
it's too late. If he'd written a month ago, we might
have gone, and it might have saved the children, but
now," Dick went on with such a dreary look of misery
in his eyes, that Tip Cat's heart ached to see it, " I
couldn't go without the children ; go back just as if
nothing had happened, and be rich and comfortable,
and all that, without Letty and Sybil."
Tip Cat said nothing, but there was something sym-
244 TIP CAT.
pathetic in his strange, light eyes that encouraged
Dick to go and pour out some of the trouble that was
weighing on his heart, only, as he talked, strange
confusions .crept in, names that Tip Cat had never
heard before, Kathie Dumbleton's among the num-
ber.
" Have I been talking nonsense ? " Dick said, sud-
denly pulling himself up. " My head feels so funny
and confused. I think I'll go up and see how
they're getting on."
But as he rose to go he turned so giddy, that he
had to catch at the back of a chair, to keep himself
from falling.
" Hullo ! " he said, " what's wrong with me ? "
He stood a minute, and then made a second effort ;
but this time Tip Cat caught him, and landed him
safely in a chair.
" I feel awfully queer," he said ; " I wonder if
I'm going to be ill ? I say ! " he went on, quickly,
holding his head in both hands, as if he were trying to
keep back the deadly giddiness for a minute to speak
plainly, " it will be a horrid bother for you, and I'm
awfully sorry for you ; but if I'm ill, you'd better
write and let Uncle Tom know. There's his letter
with the address, and he ought to see after the fune-
POOR DICK. 245
rals, you know and oh ! " said Dick, " if it wasn't
such a bother for you, when you've been so kind
already, it seems just the very best thing that we
should all of us go together over," he went on, his
voice getting lower and more indistinct, " to the
other side."
And then he fell forward against Tip Cat, who
took him in his great, strong arms and carried him
up-stairs~ with such a loving, tender care, as if it
might have been Letty herself of long ago come to
claim his promise.
For many days Dick lay between life and death,
and so near death sometimes, that Dr. Lee was fain
to give up the battle ; and he always maintained
that it was nothing but Tip Cat's unwearied nursing
that saved Dick's life, for Tip Cat was one of those
exceptional born nurses of whom I have spoken be-
fore never sleeping, nor wearying, nor despairing ;
and Ridge was as invaluable outside the sick-room
as Tip Cat was in it, having everything that was
wanted ready punctually to a second, without any
noise or bustle, or slamming doors, or scolding voices.
And now and then Nurse Esther sat by Dick's bed-
side ; but this was not often, for Tip Cat was jealous
of his rights, and seemed above the considerations
246 TIP CAT.
of rest and food, that are so necessary for mortals
generally.
When Dick first came back to dim, indistinct con-
sciousness, the first thing he noticed, as he had done
after his nap that first afternoon, was the picture on
the wall above the bed; but he was too weak to
think or wonder about it, and only lay watching it in
that strange, dead calm of utter prostration.
It also seemed to him natural, and he did not
wonder that Tip Cat should be always at his side,
ready to raise him or to shift his pillows, or to give
him some drink ; he had got used to that even in his
unconscious fever and delirium, and Tip Cat seemed
to know without a word what he wanted, and to be
able to do it just right.
There seemed no measure of time to Dick just
then ; sometimes it was dark, with the shaded lamp
burning on the table, sometimes there was light
coming from the window ; but night and day seemed
melted together in a strange, vague way, as undefined
as the furniture in the room, or the faces that came
now and then to the side of his bed.
But gradually things began to get more distinct,
and his mind grew slowly to assert itself, and memory
began weaving the woolly past into shape, and Tip
POOR DICK. 247
Cat noticed a new look in Dick's eyes as they fol-
lowed him about the room. There was a ques-
tion in them, and Tip Cat longed to answer it, only
he did not feel sure how much Dick remembered,
or how much it might be safe to tell him. But pres-
ently the question came to the lips that had been so
silent since the wild, constant talk of delirium had
ceased.
" Have I been ill long ? " so low that only a
mother or Tip Cat would have heard the words.
" Three weeks to day."
" So long ? " He said no more after that but lay
so still with his eyes closed that Tip Cat thought he
was asleep, till he saw two tears force their way be-
tween the closed lids and roll down the white, 119!-
low cheeks.
Three weeks ! they were all to have gone together
and the little ones had to go alone into all the strange-
ness of the other side, without brother Dick. If
he might only have gone first, just to show them
that there was not so much to be frightened at after
all! And they were such frightened little things,
especially Letty, and they had to go without him.
It did seem hard !
He was worse that night, more feverish and a little
248 TIPCAT.
light-headed again, repeating that he must go, he
must go the children were waiting for him. But
after this relapse he steadily improved, gaining a
little strength every day, sleeping a little better, able
to take nourishment more easily. But as he grew
stronger, he became more irritable and impatient a
sure sign, Dr. Lee declared, of approaching convales-
cence ; but Tip Cat thought there was another cause.
It was after Dr. Lee's visits that he was the most
gloomy and out of temper, especially when that
gentleman assumed the cheerful, rousing manner
that was so effective sometimes with morbid patients,
and assured him that he was ever so much better
and would soon be eating his mutton-chop and walk-
ing his six miles a day again.
" Why does he come here telling a pack of lies ? "
Dick asked angrily one day. " Does he think I'm
a nervous woman and afraid of the truth ? "
Dick seemed to watch grudgingly his own improve-
ment, resenting the notion that he had slept soundly,
and denying quite fiercely the suggestion that he was
hungry. He tried to think himself as helpless as
ever, and ignored, as much as he could, the fact that
he could raise and move himself better and more
easily every day.
POOR DICK. 249
It was not only the fractiousness of convalescence,
Tip Cat felt sure, but something deeper-rooted.
One day, as Dick lay with that settled look of
gloom on his face, Tip Cat offered to read him some-
thing, and Dick drew out from under his pillow a
little, old prayer book, that had belonged to his
mother. It had been sent home after she died, and
Dick had always kept it with him, and it had been
in his pocket the night he was taken ill, and Tip Cat
had found it there, and had put it on the table by
the bedside, and from there it had been taken by
Dick one restless, weary night, and he had slept with
his cheek resting against it, as if the worn, brown
cover conveyed some mother's comforting to him.
Now he put it in Tip Cat's hand, who took it rev-
erently, for traced in pale ink in the beginning was
the name that was written on his heart in living
letters of love. There were some rose leaves pressed
between the pages, rose leaves that he would have
loved to think had been placed there by his dead
love's hands, but they were too fresh for that, for not
three months ago they had been blooming in the
gardens of Tipton Grange, sweet and fragrant under
the eyes of two young lovers.
" Read," said Dick. And Tip Cat read where
250 TIPCAT.
he opened, a psalm, some prayers, a parable ; and
then there was silence, for his heart was so full of
his old love that he had almost forgotten Dick till
he spoke. " Tip Cat, do you think I am going to get
well ? "
There was an eagerness in his voice that might
have shown the longing for life that is so strong in
most people.
" Yes, thank God, I do."
" But why should I ? What can I do ? I've
made such a shocking mess of it and I haven't the
heart to try again, and all by myself too ! all by my-
self, without the little ones without little Letty and
Sybil ! "
His voice was very weak and uncertain yet, and it
kept breaking and choking with sobs that he was not
strong enough to suppress, though he struggled man-
fully, swallowing the sobs, dashing away the hot
tears, grasping and twisting the bed-clothes in his
hands, in his strong wrestling with the emotion
that overpowered him. Tip Cat was watching him
with a troubled, puzzled, anxious look at first ; but,
by degrees, a light seemed to break on him and clear
up all the perplexity in his eyes, and then he tried
several times to interrupt Dick with some eager
POOR DICK. 251
words of consolation or explanation ; but Dick gave
no heed, for what words could comfort him under
this heavy burden of life without his little sisters,
and presently Tip Cat got up and went away.
Dick hardly noticed that he had gone ; but, by
and by, as his agitation quieted down, the silence of
the room and of the whole house struck on him pain-
fully. The blind was up, and through the window
he could see the yellow leaves of a lime tree, drop-
ping, dropping through the damp, misty air. The
closing of a door in a distant part of the house and
a voice caught his ear, and set him suddenly listen-
ing, raised on his elbow, with a beating heart and
held breath, but he dropped back again in a moment
with a groan, for what ear, however keen and loving,
can hear voices from beyond the grave ? And as
far as those dear, young voices were concerned, Dick
knew his life must go silent till his death. Where
had they laid them ? Who stood by when their last
bedtime came ? How they used to cling about
him when they said good night, and make him pro-
mise, " ever so faithful," to come and see them after
they were in bed, and how often when he came, for
he always kept that promise, they were both asleep in
that rosy, happy, light sleep of childhood, that is as
252 TIP CAT.
different to manhood's heavy, weary slumber as a
midsummer night, full of soft starlight and dewy
fragrance, to the cold, black bitterness of winter.
Again a sound in the distance startled him ; but
this time he would not be deceived ; he drew up
the bed-clothes over eyes and ears, and tried to court
sleep with that set determination which is the surest
way of driving that coy visitor away.
But if he did not succeed in sleeping, he did in
closing his ears to outside sounds, for the door
opened without his hearing it, and some one came
to the side of the bed and laid something at his side,
something that disentangled itself from the great
knitted shawl in which it was wrapped, and pulled
down the clothes from Dick's unwilling face with
hands that were warm, living flesh and blood, though
as thin and white as flesh and blood could be, and
pressed a soft, little cheek against Dick's saying, in
Letty's sweet, little voice, " Make room for me,
Dick, for Sybil wants to come too." And there
was Sybil jumping out of Tip Cat's arms on to the bed,
with that queer, little chuckle of satisfaction which
Dick knew so well, and with nearly as much life
and bright energy and brisk enjoyment as ever.
" It was all that fool of a doctor," said Tip Cat, a
POOR DICK. 253
few minutes later, sitting at the end of the bed, with
tears in his light eyes rather dimming the pleasing
sight of three heads on Dick's pillow, where one had
lain so long alone, and four arms twined so tightly
round Dick's neck that any one else might well have
cried for mercy in the fear of suffocation. " It was
that idiot Lee ; he said we must not mention the
children because you were always raving about them
in your delirium, and he had them moved to the
other end of the house, so that you should not hear
a sound. And I was a bigger fool than he was,"
went on Tip Cat, " because I knew he was wrong all
along, and hadn't wit enough to snap my fingers in
his face."
254 TIP CAT.
CHAPTER XXII.
GETTING WELL.
AFTER all, Dick came to the conclusion, it is very
pleasant getting well, and the world is very beautiful,
and life has a good many bright days even for poor
fellows who cannot marry their lady loves, and who
have to work hard for their livings. The very idea
of work even is not unpleasant when head and hands
are getting stronger every day, and little active im-
pulses and energies make themselves felt, that have
lain dormant through fever and weakness ; not im-
mediate work perhaps, for it is still pleasant to lie
on the sofa in that sunny bow window and be petted
and waited on by Tip Cat and Ridge and Nurse
Esther and Sybil ; for Letty needs almost more pet-
ting and waiting on than Dick, being still a very
transparent, little shadow.
They are no longer at Tipton Farm, but at Tor-
quay, and it is the end of October, though it might
GETTING WELL. 255
be August to judge from the warm sunshine pouring
in at the window, and the bright blue of the bay,
and the rich green that clothes the slopes, and only
here and there a patch of red and russet foliage be-
trays the fact that winter is near. The window is
open and Kaiser sits outside on the balcony in dig-
nified ugliness, blinking in the sun and watching
the people mounting the hill to the church above,
from whence the sound of a pleasantly-toned bell is
calling to afternoon service.
Dick is alone with the children, for Tip Cat is
out, and Nurse and Ridge are among the groups of
people climbing the hill, watched by Kaiser, and by
Sybil too, from the window. Ridge and the nurse
are great friends by this time, all the greater for
their mutual distrust at first ; and Ridge has grown
quite young again in her society, and smartens him-
self up and looks quite soldierly and imposing, and
the little girls have made a plan that Ridge and nurse
shall marry and live in the lodge at Tipton Grange,
instead of that cross, old woman in spectacles, who
threw stones at Kaiser because he went after her cat.
Nurse listens to these arrangements with a smile ?
and tells them not to talk such rubbish, and that
Ridge is old enough to be her grandfather, but owns,
256 TIP CAT.
when much pressed, that he is still a fine man, and
has more notion of what he's about than half the
young men one meets.
Dick had been reading to the children out of
their mother's Prayer Book, after which followed an
ineffectual search on Letty and Sybil's part in the
Bible for the story of " Beauty and the Beast," which
they both stoutly maintained was to be found there.
Dick was much puzzled as to what could have given
rise to this idea, but when a Bible with an Apocrypha
was found, he was able to trace it to " Bel and the
Dragon," the name of which certainly sounded pro-
mising, but which was very disappointing on further
examination.
This rather exhausted their ardor of Biblical re-
search, and Sybil remembered that it must be quite
time for Letty and Dick to take their medicine.
Nurse Esther having intrusted her with the charge
of administering it. She had already twice tried to
persuade Dick that the proper time had arrived, and
had shaken the bottle so vigorously that its con-
tents were more than half froth, and had done a good
deal of scrutinising the medicine glass with one eye
shut, to master the exact line to which the medicine
was to reach.
GETTING WELL. 257
Now, as they were within about half an hour of
the right time, Dick agreed to take the medicine,
and Sybil at once assumed the most important and
dignified airs, which Letty perhaps a little bit re-
sented, as she would have loved to do the same, but
which Dick encouraged by pretending extreme dis-
gust and horror of the medicine, intreating piteously
to be allowed to leave it or at any rate to have a
piece of sugar to take the taste out of his mouth,
and at last swallowing it with such dreadful grimaces,
that Sybil was obliged to taste it herself to see if it
really were so bad, and then to fetch lumps of sugar
for the whole party, Kaiser included, to console
them.
She found it rather dull after this excitement was
over, but remembered that Nurse Esther always
washed the medicine glass after it was used, so went
bustling off to do it, coming back after a long time,
with the front of her frock rather damp and her
fingers very cold and pink results which such a
small matter as the washing of one medicine glass
seemed hardly sufficient to account for.
Meanwhile Dick and Letty were having a quiet,
little talk by themselves.
" Dick, shall we always live with Tip Cat now ? "
2$8 TIP CAT.
" Oh no, Letty ; why should we ? "
" Nurse said she thought we should, and so did
Ridge ; they were talking about it yesterday."
Her questions set Dick off thinking; but again
Letty's voice broke in on his thoughts.
" Dick, I suppose we sha'n't go and live with
Aunt Maria, shall we, now she hasn't got Ellen and
Grace ? And, Dick, ought I always to say poor Ellen
and poor Grace when I speak of them ? Nurse and
Martha always did when any one was dead, and so
did Mrs. Tysoe."
" No, Letty. Nurse and Martha don't think when
they talk like that. Do you know, little Letty, when
I was so ill, I thought that you and Sybil were both
dead ; but I never once thought of you as poor
Letty or poor Sybil, but happy, little Letty and
Sybil, and poor, poor Dick, to have to live without
them ! "
Need I say that by this time Letty was on Dick's
sofa, as if the distance between the armchair and
the sofa might be enough to make Dick poor.
" And don't you remember," Dick went on, " how
Ellen looked that day we saw her at Sandyshore ?
how ill and tired and sad she seemed, not able to
run about or be happy or out of pain for a minute ?
GETTING WELL. 259
She was poor Ellen then, but that is all changed
now." He was thinking to himself though he would
not say it to her, that, apart from her illness and
suffering, she would still have been poor Ellen,
brought up to be hard, and cold, and calculating, as
might so well have happened.
" Shall we go and live with Aunt Maria ? " There
was rather a dreary, little tone in the voice that asked
the question.
" Should you like to, Letty ? "
For all answer the arm tightened round his neck.
" Then, I suppose," said Letty, trying to speak
very cheerfully, but with a little inward shrinking,
like a young bird peeping out at a cold world from
under his .mother's wing, " that we shall go back to
Mrs. Ricketts ? "
" No, Letty ; never again, my little one. "
" Then do you think we could really and truly
afford to live at Mrs. Tysoe's ? Do you know, Dick,
Mr. Tysoe came ever so many times to ask how we
were, and brought us all sorts of things we weren't
allowed to have sweets and preserved ginger and
candied peel and Mrs. Tysoe came up once in the
cart, and was so angry because she was not let in to
see us ? But there's the new lodger, Dick the travel-
260 TIP CAT.
ler, you know perhaps he would not like to turn out
and let us have the rooms again, and what shall \ve
do then ? "
Dick was hardly listening to Letty's words, for her
questions had set his mind so busily to work on what
would indeed be the best plan for the future. Cer-
tainly any arrangement like that of living at the Rick-
etts' was quite out of the question, and even the
Tysoes', if it was to be had, he felt would hardly be
the place for that very fragile, little sister of his.
And, besides, how did he know that Mr. Burgess's
situation would still be open to him, or if he would
have 'to seek another elsewhere ? Surely Uncle Tom
would be willing now (and it was only right and pro-
per that he should do st>) to provide for the children ;
" And as for me," thought Dick, "when I'm all right
again "
But just as Dick got so far in his meditations Tip
Cat came in, a little gruff at finding the window still
open and the fire almost out, for the sun had set, and
even at Torquay the end of- October is not like August
after sunset.
But by and by, when the windows were shut and
the curtains drawn and the sofa wheeled round to
the fire, which had woke up to fill the room with
GETTING WELL. 261
warmth and ruddy light, Tip Cat, who had Letty in
his arms, started the very subject the two had been
discussing before he came in.
" How would you like, Letty, to live at Tipton
Grange ? "
" At Tipton Grange, with Mrs. Vivian and Kathie
Dumbleton ? "
" No ; at Tipton Grange with me."
He gave a little, quick look across at Dick to see
if he were listening, and then went on talking to Letty
and to Sybil, who came to sit on a stool at his feet.
" You see, Mrs. Vivian's lease is up next year, and
she wants to renew it. It's a large house, you know,
Letty, too large for me and Ridge, we should lose
one another in it, and spend all our lives trying to
find one another again. But it would be just the
right size for you and me and Sybil and Dick, and we
should want a few servants to wait on us, and per-
haps a governess or so Oh ! I don't mean, of
course, for you and Sybil, but for me and Dick ; and
then, perhaps, when Dick comes home from Oxford,
he'll bring friends with him, and they will help to fill
the place, and then, of course, you and Sybil will ask
your friends "
" Oh yes ! " burst in Sybil, " there's the Tysoes.
262 TIP CAT.
I know they'd like to come, for Mr. Tysoe said he'd
never once been in at the front door."
" Yes, to be sure, the Tysoes," went on Tip Cat,
still with half an eye on Dick's face, the expression
of which he could not quite make out, though he saw
his hands, which had grown so thin and white in his
illness, clench and unclench nervously, as he listened.
" Do you think you could be happy there with me ?
Stop a bit, Dick ! Don't be in a hurry, lad ! " For
Dick had half raised himself from the sofa, with vehe-
ment words on his lips. " I must have my say first,
and tell you why I have a sort of right to you and
Lettyand Sybil."
And then he told him of his love for their mother,
and of that promise made years ago under the gold-
en chestnut tree in the vicarage garden, a promise
that seemed to have fallen as dead as those bright
autumn leaves ; forgotten as completely as last year's
leaves when the buds came out in May, the buds of
her great love for another ; buried with that dear
dust to dust in that far away grave in India. Till
suddenly, when least he looked for it, he had been
reminded of this promise by Letty's eyes looking up
at him from her child's face among the bushes by
the plank bridge, and having been slow, fool that he
GETTING WELL. 263
was ! to hear his dead lady's voice, he had let it pass
till it came clear and plain beyond all mistaking,
in poor, little Letty's cry for help in their trouble.
" And now," he said, " do you think I can let you
go again ? "
" You are so good," Dick said ; his voice was
trembling, he was not very strong yet, and it was as
much as he could do to keep the tears back from his
eyes, and to steady his uncertain voice. " You have
been so good to us already that it seems a ridiculous
insult to thank you for what is quite beyond all
thanks. You gave us back our lives, you know. Oh
yes ! I know, I am not ungrateful, but don't you see,
it was through you, all through you."
Letty and Sybil had been wafted somehow out of
the room by nurse Esther to tea, and Dick and Tip
Cat were alone just now.
" Don't you think,", went on Dick, getting more
indistinct and chokey every minute, " that you have
more than fulfilled your promise to my mother with-
out being bothered with us any more ? "
" Come now," said Tip Cat, " do you think that
I can just go back to Tipton Farm and settle down
with Ridge and Kaiser as if nothing had happened ?
I don't believe Ridge would do it," he said, with a
264 TIP CAT.
queer look at Dick as the sound of Ridge's voice
was heard from the next room evidently taking part
in a cheerful tea with the children and nurse Esther ;
" he has got thoroughly demoralised and so has
Kaiser. He would not go with me this afternoon
because Sybil held the end of his tail, and the old
idiot was too great a gentleman to pull it out of her
little hand."
There was silence then for a bit, and Dick lay
with great, luminous eyes shining in the firelight
and Tip Cat watched him under his thick brows and
waited for the words to express the thoughts that he
almost seemed to see passing from Dick's brain to
the tremulous, eager lips.
At last he spoke. " Tip Cat," he said, " I think
my mother would wish you to have the little girls,
and I know you'll be good to them ; and I've made
such a mull of taking care of them that I haven't the
pluck to try again ; and they wouldn't like to go to
Aunt Maria and I shouldn't like them to go either,
though I dare say, poor thing, she'd do her best to
be kind to them. And if you really will take care
of them till I see my way and can get on a bit, and
if you'll let me come now and then to see them and
you, I'll " But here Dick broke down altogether,
GETTING WELL. 265
and Tip Cat leaning across laid his hand on the
young fellow's shaking shoulder.
" Dick," he said, " dear as Letty and Sybil are
to me, and I love them so that I sometimes wonder if
even I could have loved their mother herself better,
it is you, lad, Letty's boy, that I love best and that
I want most."
266 TIP CAT.
CHAPTER XXIII.
DICK'S OBSTINACY".
DURING the fortnight that followed that Sunday,
Tip Cat discovered a quality in Dick which he had
not hitherto recognised, that quality which the pos-
sessor calls firmness and other people obstinacy, the
display of which so exasperated Tip Cat, that he was
heard more than once to declare that he was an ob-
stinate, pig-headed, young fool, and he swallowed
down such a lot of strong language on account of the
children's presence, that he felt seriously uncomfort-
able from suppressed wrath.
The fact was that nothing would induce Dick to
agree to Tip Cat's plan for the future as far as he
himself was concerned. He accepted with the deep-
est gratitude Tip Cat's proposal for the little girls,
but for himself he declared that, when he was well,
he should look out for another situation, if Mr. Bur-
gess's was not to be had, and make another, and he
hoped a more successful, effort to earn his living.
DICK'S OBSTINACY. 267
It was in vain that Tip Cat talked and argued till
he was hoarse and very angry ; Dick listened to all
he had to say with the greatest outward submission
but without budging an inch from his determination,
and the conversations almost always ended with warm
expressions of gratitude on Dick's part and an ex-
plosion of wrath on the part of Tip Cat.
Tip Cat tried every persuasion in his power ;
painted Dick's return to Oxford among all his old
friends, taking up again the pleasant, jolly, old life
just where it had been broken off ; his home at Tipton
Grange with the two little girls, where he could en-
tertain his friends ; of the hunters* he should have,
and the pheasant shooting that should be kept for
him, and the moor in Scotland that they would take,
and the yacht at Cowes that might make a pleasant
change, and, if he must have something to do, he
might be called to the bar or he might stand for the
county if he had any fancy that way ; did he think the
estates had been nursing up all these years for
nothing ?
But Dick only smiled and shook his head and
sternly prevented his mind from resting even for five
minutes on such glittering prospects.
And then Tip Cat declared that it would be months
268 TIP CAT.
before Dick would be strong enough to do anything,
and drew such a gloomy picture of the probable state
of his health for the rest of his life, that Dick threat-
ened to show his strength by carrying Tip Cat him-
self round the room, and would have attempted it, if
he had not laughed himself into too hopeless a state
of exhaustion.
Then Tip Caf set Letty and Sybil at him, and this
was no laughing affair, for two very tearful faces came
to Tip Cat's door after their interview with Dick, to
say that Dick was always right, and they had prom-
ised never to try and persuade him to' do anything
else.
Then Tip Cat tried a desperate expedient and re-
gretted it bitterly. He said that, on consideration,
he thought it would not be right to take the little
girls without Dick, and that as Dick so entirely de-
clined his proposal, perhaps it would be better to
give up the whole plan and let Dick make some other
arrangement for his little sisters.
At first he thought this thrust had told, for Dick
sat silent and still, and his face was very white ; but
he turned Tip Cat's weapons on him when he ans-
wered that he, too, had been thinking the matter over
very seriously, and he thought that, perhaps, Tip Cat
DICK'S OBSTINACY 269
was right, for that Aunt Maria, in her great trouble
and bereavement, had expressed a great wish to have
the little girls with her, and that it might be their
duty to consider her before making other plans.
Tip Cat was furious and Letty and Sybil in the
depths of woe, but patient and resigned to do just
what Dick thought right ; but Letty had such a fever-
ish night in consequence, and was so ill and prostrate
next day, that Tip Cat was reduced to the most abject
submission, and entreated Dick to make what ar-
rangements he pleased, but never even to suggest the
idea of the children going anywhere but into his care ;
as if, indeed, Dick had been the first to propose the
plan.
Dick made rather an ungenerous use of this
victor)', for he wrote that very day to Mr. Burgess
to know if the situation was still vacant, and if he
would allow him to return to his work in a month's
time^and Tip Cat looked on grimly while the letter
was being written and despatched, and did not dare
to say a word of expostulation on account of the
little, white face on the sofa which grew tremulous
at the least sign of a discussion.
For two days Tip Cat comforted himself and
crowed a little over Dick with the idea that Mr. Bur-
270 TIP CAT.
gess must certainly have filled Dick's place by this
time, and no doubt much more to his satisfaction, as
Dick always represented, and firmly believed, that he
had made a very poor job of it at Mr. Burgess's
and given a lot of trouble by his inefficiency. But
the next day a letter came that quite touched Dick
by its kindness, and to a corresponding degree ir-
ritated Tip Cat, saying that Mr. Burgess much re-
gretted Mr. Lucas' illness, and should be very glad
if he would return to his office when his health was
quite re-established, also offering him a slight ad-
dition to his salary, and expressing his satisfaction
with the manner in which he had discharged his
duties while he had been there.
Indeed, Mr. Burgess had found it a very different
matter when Mr. Macintosh undertook Dick's du-
ties, and even Mr. Lupton had been obliged grudg-
ingly to confess, that things had gone better when
Dick was there, and that they might have a worse
clerk than he was.
Tip Cat's last hope now seemed to have come to
the ground, and he was sitting gloomily on one of the
seats under the cliff near the sea wall, pondering
how best he might alleviate this wilful young fellow's
life without offending the pride that he liked him all
DICK'S OBSTINACY. 271
the better for possessing, when his eye was caught
by the face of a girl sitting in a carriage just then
drawn up by the pavement opposite to him. The
other occupant of the carriage was talking to a
gentleman standing on the other side, so he could
not see her face, but the girl was not apparently in-
terested in the conversation, but was leaning back
with her face turned towards Tip Cat and her
eyes gazing dreamily along the sunny roadway as
if her thoughts (and they were sad ones) were far
away.
Tip Cat did not often notice faces, least of all ladies'
faces ; but this one attracted him, for it was un-
usually sweet, and something in the look of the
eyes reminded him of Dick, and, through Dick, of
the Letty of long ago. But while he was looking at
her the other lady ended her conversation and turned,
and, as her eye met Tip Cat's, she gave a smile of
recognition, and bowed as the carriage drove off.
Who was it ? Tip Cat wondered ; but his circle of
lady friends was not so large that he could wonder
long, and, by the time his hat was on again, he
remembered that it was Mrs. Vivian.
That evening, as he was sitting by while the
children played, half reading the paper and half
272 TIP CAT.
listening to the children's talk, he heard a name
several times repeated that sounded to him very fa-
miliar, and yet he could not clearly remember why he
knew it so well,
" Kathie Dumbleton," Letty said, had eyes just
like the doll, Tip Cat had bought the day before ;
but Sybil thought hers were darker, and at last they
appealed to Tip Cat, as Dick was not there.
" Who is Kathie Dumbleton ? " he asked.
" Oh, don't you know ? She lives with Mrs.
Vivian, at Tipton Grange ; and we went to tea with
her once, and she had a pink frock on and she
mended mine, and there were sponge cakes for tea,
and peacocks and lots of roses, and she pinned a rose
to our frocks, and Dick gave me threepence for mine
when it was quite withered."
" Oh-h-h-h ! " said Tip Cat.
He remembered now how the name had grown so
familiar to him ; it was not from the children's prat-
tle, but from a voice in delirium, repeating it over
and over again, joined to tender adjectives of love
or sad words of farewell. How stupid and slow he
had been in putting things together and reading
Dick's sad, little love-story ! And no doubt that was
Kathie Dumbleton who was with Mrs, Vivian that
DICK'S OBSTINACY.
afternoon, and whose sweet face he had noticed,
and perhaps even then her thoughts had been with
Dick, as her eyes gazed dreamily away into the dis-
tance. If she really cared for Dick, as he had no
doubt Dick cared for her, why should they be parted ?
What reason could there be for that heartbroken
farewell that Dick had murmured over and over
again in his delirium ? " Kathie, my love, my love ;
goodbye ! "
Tip Cat was very silent and thoughtful all that
evening, but he noticed how Dick's color flushed
up when he came in and the children referred the
debated point about the doll's eyes to him, and how
after the little ones had gone to bed, he took up the
waxen beauty, and looked at the pretty, simpering
face with an eager scrutiny, and then pushed it away
impatiently, as if he were irritated with it, or him-
self.
But all the time Tip Cat was hatching a little
scheme, and the next afternoon he proceeded to
carry it out. He had promised to take Letty and
Sybil for a drive that afternoon, but for the first time
in the course of their acquaintance, he broke his pro-
mise and sent them off with Dick instead, saying
, that he had some business to do, and, after seeing
274 TIP CAT.
them off, he set out himself in the direction of the
Imperial Hotel, where an examination of the visi-
tors' list had told him that Mrs. Vivian and her
niece were staying.
" FOR MY SAKE. " 275
CHAPTER XXIV.
"FOR MY SAKE."
IT required some courage in Tip Cat, apart from
the ultimate object of his visit, to pay a call on
two ladies, when he had not done such a thing for
twenty-five years at the very least ; and though,
like Ridge, the society of the children had produced
a slight improvement in his personal appearance and
way of dressing, still, he was a gaunt, remarkable
figure, and many turned to look at him with curiosity
as he stalked along the streets with his shaggy dog at
his heels ; and the waiter at the Imperial looked very
suspiciously at this most unusual sort of morning
caller, who asked for Mrs. Vivian, and he looked
rather doubtfully at the card, which had been bought
at a stationer's on the way up, and on which the
name " Tipton Cathcart " was written in a hand which
not even the pin-pointed pen lent at the shop could
rob of its bold and rugged character.
276 TIP CAT.
But the waiter returned to usher him in with a
great increase of alacrity and respect, for Mrs.
Vivian had appeared both pleased and surprised at
the sight of the name, and had desired the waiter to
show the gentleman up forthwith.
It was certainly enough to surprise her, for it was
the first time in the whole course of her experience
of her strange landlord, now of many years' duration,
that he had done anything but avoid her with a
pertinacity that bordered on downright rudeness.
"What could he possibly want ? " she wondered,
and for the first few minutes she could not solve the
problem, while he sat very stiff and upright on a
settee in the window, twisting his hat round and
round in his big hands, and staring out across the
lovely, blue bay as if he were intent on watching the
brown-sailed fishing boats turning into Brixham
Harbor, and only answering, with gruff monosyl-
lables, to her gentle stream of polite nothings about
the weather and the scenery.
Once or twice he gave a quick look round the
room, but there was no one there but Mrs. Vivian,
and though a half-finished sketch and an open col-
or-box lay on the table close by, no Kathie Dum-
bleton made her appearance on the scene ; so there
" FOR MY SAKE." 277
was no help for it but to plunge into the object of
his call without any help from outward circum-
stances, and this he did, breaking into Mrs. Vivian's
enthusiastic expressions of admiration for Anstey's
Cove, as if he hardly knew she were speaking.
" You have a niece, I believe ? "
" Yes, I have several."
" I mean Kathie Dumbleton,"
" Yes, Miss Dumbleton is now staying with me."
She meant the slight stress on the Miss to be a re-
proof to this very rough, almost brutal, old man ;
but she might have spared herself the trouble, for, if
she had spoken of Kathie as her royal highness, he
would scarcely have noticed it, so set was he on get-
ting out what he wanted to say.
" There is a young fellow I am much interested
in, named Dick Lucas," Tip Cat went on.
" Indeed ? " said Mrs. Vivian, with outward in-
difference, but with a sudden remembrance of that
evening in the Grange garden, when Kathie had
sobbed out her broken-hearted confession, and of
evenings since then, in the dusk or firelight, when
the girl's head had lain on her lap, and the young
voice had whispered that she never could forget, or
care for any one else. But Mrs. Vivian said " In-
278 TIP CAT.
deed ? " as if she had never heard the name be-
fore.
" He is the son of a Colonel Lucas, who died in
Indfa, and he has been clerk at Mr. Burgess's at
Slowmill for the last six months."
" Really ? " murmured Mrs. Vivian ; " very cred-
itable to the young man, I'm sure."
" I have reason to believe, madam, that he has
formed an attachment for your niece."
" Indeed?" said Mrs. Vivian, with a slight rais-
ing of the eyebrows and drawing in of the lips, that
might have conveyed, to any one more sensitive than
a rhinoceros, the ridiculous presumption of such an
attachment; and the utter indifference with which
it should be regarded. But Tip Cat continued, " I
have the very highest opinion of young Lucas,
and I only hope your niece is half good enough
for him, but I think she is an uncommonly lucky
girl."
Now Mrs. Vivian was not easily provoked, she
was fat and comfortable and easy-going, and would
have been heartily glad if all the rest of the world
had been fat and comfortable and easy-going too ;
but the reader will allow that Tip Cat's way of treat-
ing the subject was enough to disturb the most in-
" FOR MY SAKE. " 279
dolent good-nature, and Mrs. Vivian sat more up-
right in her arm chair than she had done for many a
day, and directed quite a withering glance at the un-
conscious Tip Cat.
" I think I understood you to say that this young
man was a clerk at Burgess's office."
" Yes," said Tip Cat.
" Not a very exalted position a paid clerk to a
country lawyer."
" No one said it was," growled Tip Cat.
" Then do you really mean to say, Mr. Cathcart,
that you think that this young man is in a position
to propose to my niece, who will come into a good
property at her father's death, besides what she al-
ready has from her mother ? "
" Eh h h ? " said Tip Cat, turning quite bewil-
dered to look at Mrs. Vivian, whose heightened col-
or and indignant eyes were quite unaccountable to
him. He had quite lost sight, had this romantic,
old man, of outward circumstances and worldly con-
siderations of wealth and position, and had been
thinking only of two young hearts that loved one
another, one of which he knew was good and pure
and true ; and he stared at Mrs. Vivian for a minute,
in silence " looking positively idiotic " that lady
280 TIP CAT.
said in describing the scene afterwards but at last
a. light seemed to dawn on his mind and a smile on
the grave astonishment of his eyes.
" Oh ! " he said, " I see ! I beg your pardon !
You see Tipton Grange estate is considerable, and
it will all be Dick Lucas's ; and as for settlements
and that sort of nonsense, I generally leave such
things to the lawyers, but I'll undertake there shall
be no grumbling over such trifles."
Mrs. Vivian's breath was fairly taken away, and
I think if Tip Cat had looked idiotic the minute be-
fore, she must have looked so now, as she sank
back with all the stiffness taken out of her backbone
and the firmness out of her lips and the fire out of
her eyes ; only Tip Cat did not care a snap how she
looked, for just then his eye caught sight, in the ter-
raced gardens below the window, of a girl's figure
walking pensively up and down in the sunshine.
" Is that your niece there ? " he said, and hardly
waiting for Mrs. Vivian's assent he got up ; " then
with your permission I will go and speak to her my-
self. Good day to you." And away he strode, leav-
ing poor Mrs. Vivian quite overcome, and obliged
to ring for her maid and give way to a glass of
sherry and palpitations brought on by what she at
" FOR MY SAKE." 281
first called, the brutal, and afterwards, on reflection,
the eccentric, behavior of Tip Cat.
Meanwhile, that offender had made his way down
stairs and out into the hotel garden, where he found
Kathie alone as the sun was getting low in the west ;
and the two or three invalids who had been crawl-
ing up and down the paths had taken flight at the
first tint of sunset in the sky, and breath of evening
in the air, and had fled for shelter.
Kathie was a little bit startled at the sudden ap-
pearance of this strange, uncouth, old man, but she
guessed who he was before he spoke, and his voice
was softened to something of the same tone that
Letty and Sybil knew, as he told her (the old de-
ceiver !) that her aunt had given him leave to come
and find her there as he had a few words to say to
her.
Curious observers, watching from the hotel win-
dows as the two paced up and down the path while
the sunset glowed and faded in the sky, speculated
and wondered what the subject of such absorbing
interest could be, and what that strange looking,
rough, old man could be saying with those pleading
movements of the hands and eager eyes, scanning
the downcast, troubled face of the girl.
282 TIP CAT.
He plunged into his subject without any preface,
and began telling her of the interest he felt in Dick
Lucas and his little sisters on account of their dead
mother. He noticed how the wave of color rushed
up into her temples and even to her little ears at the
first mention of Dick's name, and went on more hope-
fully, having been a little damped by his interview
with Mrs. Vivian. He told her of Dick's sudden
loss of fortune on his grandfather's death, of which
she already knew a little, and how bravely he had
tried to support himself and his two little sisters, and
how illness had come at last to end the pitiful strug-
gle, and how nearly death had followed. He saw the
tears start and tremble in her eyes, though she kept
them so steadily cast down, and sparkle on her lashes
though she made a pretext to pick an ivy leaf on the
wall to whisk them away unnoticed. He told her
how Dick had slowly recovered and how he (Tip Cat)
had set all his heart and hopes on having Dick as
his son, as Letty and Sybil were to be his little
daughters, and how the obstinate, young fellow had
persisted in refusing and had actually arranged to go
back to his drudgery at Mr. Burgess's in spite of all
persuasions.
" I have tried all the inducements I could think of,"
" FOR MY SAKE:' 2 83
Tip Cat said, " to make him alter his determination,
but it is no good, and as a last resource I have come
to you, to ask you to use your influence."
They had come to the end of the path furthest from
the hotel, and as he said this they both stopped, and
Kathie gave a sudden, startled look into his face and
then began stripping the ivy leaf in her hand to pieces
with nervous fingers. But Tip Cat had no more to
say, he was waiting for her answer, and at last she
said very low : " I don't see what I can do in the
matter."
" Don't you ? " He turned quite fiercely on her and
his voice sounded harsh enough now. " Then you
don't care for him ! Why, do you think, if my love
Letty had come to me and said, ' Tip Cat, for my
sake ! ' there is anything in the world I would not have
done ? Heaven forgive me ! I think I would have
given my very soul and my hope of immortality ! "
She was leaning against the balustrades, with her
face turned away and he could only see the outline
of her cheek against the crimson of the western sky>
and her slender throat drawn up with what seemed
to him an air of cold, proud indifference, he could not
see the quivering of her lips, or the tumultuous beat-
ing of her heart, which had never seemed quite to
284 TIP CAT.
regain its calm since that passionate kiss of her young
lover's that July evening.
He stood waiting a minute, and then without an-
other word turned and walked away, full of bitter
disappointment, and every sound of his heavy footfall
on the gravel path seemed to Kathie a clod thrown
into the grave of her happiness, buried without hope
of resurrection.
Reader, do you know in Paul and Virginia the ac-
count of Virginia's death ? and how she preferred to
die rather than cast off the clothing which would have
impeded the swimming of the brave sailor who would
have saved her, and how this is treated as exquisite
and refined modesty ? Even as a child it struck me as
false sentiment and that, to pervert the words of Scrip-
ture, the life is more than raiment. And do you
know how many love stories in fiction (fewer, I fancy,
in real life) end sadly because the heroine's modesty
will not allow a word or look to reveal the love that
is breaking her heart ? and so two people are made
miserable and two lives spoilt. Far be it from me to
speak a word against modesty. All honor to it ! There
cannot be too much of it, but, for pity's sake, let it
be real, not false !
But Kathie was not of the stuff those heroines are
" FOR MY SAKE." 285
made of, for, before Tip Cat had reached the steps
at the end of the terrace, she was by his side with
her little hand on his arm, and her face turned plead-
ingly up, more pleading for the tears that filled and
overflowed the eyes.
" Tell me," she said, " what I can do ? I will do
anything."
Did they say Tip Cat was harsh and rough ? Did
they say his eyes were hard and imperious, and his
manner brutal ? Ask Kathie Dumbleton how tend-
erly he took her hand in his, how kindly he smiled
down at her, and how gently he spoke. " My dear,
trust in me. I will take care of you and not ask you
to do anything that I would not ask of a sweet,
young daughter of my own."
The watchers from the hotel windows could make
neither head nor tail of it, as they watched the little
scene, at the end of which they saw Tip Cat lead
Kathie away, holding the hand that lay on his arm,
and some declared that as they came nearer they
could see that Kathie was crying, and when they
passed through the hotel and called a fly, and drove
off in it together, fche interested spectators felt as if
it must be some one's duty to go and warn Mrs,
Vivian of her niece's goings on.
'286 TIP CAT.
I do not think that Tip Cat had any very settled
plan of action, when he carried Kathie Dumbleton
off in this way, and as for Kathie, she had no idea
at all of what was going to happen, only as long as
Tip Cat held her little hand in his firm grasp, she
did not feel very much afraid.
It was nearly dark when the fly stopped and Tip
Cat helped her out and led her, still holding her hand
in his, into the house and opened the door of a room
lighted only by a great, warm fire. At first Kathie
thought it was empty, but Tip Cat said, " Dick ! " and
at his voice some one got up from the sofa at the
further end, and came into the firelight.
" Dick, I have brought a visitor to see you." But
at these words .the poor, little visitor was overwhelmed
with a passion of confusion, and clung to Tip Cat's
arm as if it were her only safety. She suddenly re-
membered how last she had parted from this same
Dick, how could she look at him ? how could she
speak to him ? What could she say ?
And then all at once she looked up and saw such
a poor, white-faced Dick, so changed, so gaunt, with
such great, hollow eyes and such cropped hair, hold-
ing out such thin, wasted hands to her ! Was this
the proud, young fellow who refused Tip Cat's offers,
" FOR MY SAKE." 287
and persisted in working his way ? how long would
he stand the treadmill at Mr. Burgess's and the poor
pay and hard living ?
In the pity of it she forgot all her shame, and let
go of Tip Cat's arm, and put both her hands into
Dick's, and, looking up into his eyes, spoke the first
words that came into her head, the very words that
Tip Cat had told her would have been so powerful
with him from the lips of his love. " Oh, Dick, for
my sake ! "
Reader, do you think Tip Cat had any doubt of his
victory after that, even though he stopped to hear no
more, but slipped away into the next room and sat
watching the lights appearing along the streets and
in the houses, and higher up the stars coming so
softly, gently out on night's breast ?
His heart was as tremulously happy as if the long,
empty years had rolled back and he were young
again and telling that love, on which death had laid
its solemn seal of silence, in Letty's ears and his eyes
grew dim as he murmured, " Letty, my love, at last ! "
THE END.
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