"Oh! you unnat'ral child!"

"Well, the unnat'ral child will ask Mr. Wesden if she may keep out of the shop to-night, and bring a book down-stairs to read to you, over your needlework. But if you don't work I shan't read, Ann--is it a bargain?"

"You're allus imperent; but get the book, if master'll let you. Oh! how _they_ do shoot!"

Mattie obtained permission, brought down a book from the store, and sat down to read to honest Ann. She had made a good choice, and Ann was soon interested, forgot her ailments, and st.i.tched away with excitable rapidity. Mattie had no time for thoughts of her own, or the new mystery above-stairs till the supper hour. She read on till the Hinchford bell rang once more; then she closed the book, and met with her reward in Ann's large red hand falling heavily, yet affectionately, on her shoulder.

"Thankee, Mattie. I'll do as much for you some day, gal."

"When you can spell, or when I've gouty ankles, Ann?"

"Ah! get out with you!--I'm only fit for making game on, you think. I'm a poor woman, who never had the time to larn to read, and the likes of you can laugh at me."

"No--only try to make you laugh, Ann. You're not cross?"

"G.o.d bless you!--not I," she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed spasmodically. "There, go about your work, and don't think anything of what an old fool like me talks about."

Mattie busied herself with the supper tray, the bread, cheese, knives and plates, and then bore them away in her strong arms; Ann watched her out of the room, and then produced an indifferently clean cotton handkerchief, with which she wiped her eyes and blew her nose.

"To think how that gal has altered since she first came here, a little ragged thing," soliloquized Ann, "a gal who skeered you with the wulgar words she'd picked up in the streets, and was so awful ignorant, you blushed for her. And now the briskiest and best of gals; if I don't spend all my money in doctors stuff afore I die, that Mattie shall have every penny of it. It's in my will so; they put it down in black and white for me, and she'll never know it till I'm--I'm gone!"

A prospect that caused Ann Packet to weep afresh; a dismal, but a soft-hearted woman, who had pa.s.sed through life with no one to love, until she met with the stray. She was a stray herself, picked up at the workhouse gate, to the disgust of the relieving officer, and turned out to service as soon as she could walk and talk, and a mistress be found for her--lonely in the world herself, she had, when the time came round, taken to one more forlorn and friendless than ever she had been. And she _had_ left her all her money--fourteen pounds, seven and sevenpence, put out at interest, two and seven eighths, in the Finsbury Savings Bank, whither her ankles refused to carry her to get her book made up, another trouble at that time which kept her mind unsettled.

CHAPTER VII.

CONFIDENCE.

Whilst Mattie read to her fellow-workman, consolation was also being attempted in the drawing-room that she had quitted. Consolation attempted by the father after awhile to his son.

After awhile, for an hour pa.s.sed before a word was exchanged, and Sidney Hinchford still held the newspaper before him, staring at it, without comprehending a word. A singular position for him to adopt; a youth of twenty, who never wasted time, who had always something on his hands to fill up his evenings at home, who was very often too busy to play backgammon with his father.

That father was troubled; his heart was in his son's peace of mind; there was nothing that he would not have sacrificed for it, had it lain in his power. His pride was in his son's advancement, his son's ability, and he fancied that a great trouble had occurred at the business to change the scene in which both played their parts. He was less strong-minded and more nervous than he had been four years ago, and so less affected him.

When the hour had pa.s.sed, and he had grown tired of Sidney's silence, he said, with something of his son's straightforwardness,

"What's the matter, Sid?"

Sidney crumpled the paper in his hands, and flung it on the table; he was tired, even a little ashamed of his sullen deportment.

"A matter that I ought to keep to myself, it being a foolish one, sir,"

he answered; "but, if you wish, I will relate it."

"If _you_ wish, Sid," was the courteous answer; "I have no wish to hear anything that you would desire to keep back from me. If you think I can be of no use to you, give you no advice, offer no consolation that you may think worthy of acceptance, and if," with a very wistful glance towards him, "you consider it a matter that concerns yourself alone, why I--I don't wish to intrude upon your confidence."

"I don't think that we have had any secrets from each other yet; I don't see any reason why we should begin to get mysterious, father," Sidney replied; "and so, here's the full, true, and particular account."

Mr. Hinchford edged his chair nearer to his son, the son turned and looked his father in the face, blushing just a little at the beginning of his narrative.

"It's an odd thing for one _man_ to tell another," he said quickly, "but it's what you ought to know, and though it makes me wince a little, it's soon over. I've been thinking of engaging myself to----"

"Not to another firm, Sid--_now_?" cried the father, as he paused.

"To Harriet Wesden, down-stairs."

"G.o.d bless me!"

Mr. Hinchford pa.s.sed his hands through his scanty white hairs, stroked his moustache, blew at an imaginary something in the air, loosened his stock, and gasped a little. His son engaging himself to be married was a new element to perplex him; he had never believed in human nature, or the Hinchford nature, taking that turn for years and years. Once or twice he had thought that his careful son might some day look around him and _marry well_; but that at twenty years of age he should have fallen in love, was a miracle that took some minutes to believe in.

"Well," he said at last.

"I should have said, father, that I had been thinking of an engagement--a long one to end in a happy marriage, when there was fair sailing for all of us--and that my thoughts found words when I least expected them, and surprised Harriet by their suddenness. I told her I loved her, and she told me that she didn't--and there's an end of it! We need not speak of the affair again, you know."

"'And that she didn't!'" quoted the father, "why, that's more amazing still!"

"On the contrary, that is the most natural part of it."

"And she really said--"

"She said that she did not want any more of my jaw--rather more elegantly expressed, but that is what she meant. Well, I _was_ a fool!"

Mr. Hinchford sat and reflected, becoming graver every instant. He did not attempt to make light of the story, to treat it as one of those trifles 'light as air,' which a breath would disperse. His son's was neither a frivolous nor a romantic nature, and he treated even his twenty years with respect. Mr. Hinchford was astonished also at his own short-sightedness; the strangeness of this love pa.s.sage darting across the monotony of his quiet way, without a flash from the danger signal by way of hint at its approach. He saw how it was to end, very clearly now, he thought; Harriet Wesden and his son would contract an early engagement, marry in haste, and cut him off by a flank movement, from his son's society. He saw the new loves replacing the old, and himself, white-haired and feeble, isolated from the boy to whom his heart yearned. He scarcely knew how he had idolized his son, until the revelation of this night. Still he was one of the least selfish men in the world; Sidney's happiness first, and then the thought how best to promote his own.

After a few more questions and answers, Mr. Hinchford mastered the position of affairs. Harriet Wesden loved his boy--that was a certainty, and to be expected--and her timid embarra.s.sment at Sid's sudden proposal, and her nervous escape from it, were but natural in that s.e.x which poor Sid knew so little concerning. And the Wesdens, _pere et mere_, why, they would be proud of the match; for Sid's abilities would make a gentleman of him, and Sid in good time--all in good time--would raise the stationer's daughter to a position, of which she might well be proud! He liked the Wesdens, but heigho!--he had looked forward to his boy doing better in the world, finding a wife more suitable for him in the future.

It was all plain enough, but he furbished up his philosophy, nevertheless--that odd philosophy which at variance with his brighter thoughts, sought to prepare those to whom it appealed for the worst that might happen. He looked at the worst aspect of things, whilst his heart had not a doubt of the best; he would have prepared all the world for the keenest disappointments, and been the man to give way most, and to be the most astounded at the result, had his prophecies come true. Years ago he foretold Mattie's ingrat.i.tude and duplicity in return for his patronage; but he had not believed a word of his forebodings. He had told his son not to build upon so improbable a thing as a partnership with his employers at so early an age; but he was more feverishly expectant than his son, and so positive that his son's abilities would be thus rewarded, that his pride had expanded of late years, and he talked more like the rich man he had been once himself.

Mr. Hinchford prepared his son for the worst that evening; and the son, knowing his character, felt a shadow removed at every dismal conjecture as to how the little love affair would terminate.

"You can't let it rest here, however bad it may turn out, Sid."

"No, of course not."

"You must see Harriet's father in the morning, and make a clean breast of it; and then if he turn you off with a short word--feeling himself a rich man, and above the connection--why, you will put up with it gravely, and like a Hinchford. There are a great many things against your chances, my boy."

"We're both too young, perhaps," suggested Sidney, more dolefully.

"Years too young," was the reply; "and people have unpleasant habits of changing their minds--and then what a fix it would be, Sid! Why, Harriet Wesden's not eighteen till next month--quite a child!"

"No, I'm hanged if she is!" burst forth Sidney.

"Well then, you're but a boy, after all; and these long and early engagements are bad things for both. But still as it has come, you must speak to the old people; and if they have no objection--which I think they will have--and Harriet is inclined to accept you--which I think she isn't--why, make the best of it, work on in the old sure and steady fashion--you're worth waiting for, my lad."

"Thank you, dad," was the reply; "you're very kind, but your opinion of me is not the world's. I'm a cross-grained, unforgiving, disagreeable person--there!"

"In your enemy's estimation--but your friends?"