Her clothes depended upon occasional gifts from friends.

Claudia began to condemn the world for its hardness.

"But I am not clever," said Sarah; "I can do nothing in particular, and there are so many of us wanting work."

"And do all these people really need it?"

"Yes; and we all think it hard when girls come and, for the mere pleasure of doing something, take such work at a lower wage than those can take who must live."

"But look at me," said Claudia; "I don't want the money, but I want the occupation; I want to feel I have some definite duties, and some place of my own in the world."

Sarah looked a little puzzled. Then she said, "Perhaps Mrs. Warwick could help you."

"Who is Mrs. Warwick?"

"Mrs. Warwick is the presiding genius of a ladies' club to which some of my friends go. I daresay one of them will be very glad to take us there."

So they agreed to go. Claudia felt, it must be owned, a little disappointed at what she had heard from her friends, but was inclined to believe that between the old life at home and the drudgery for the bare means of existence there still lay many things which she could do. She revolved the subject in the course of a morning walk on the day they were to visit the club, and returned to the shelter of her aunts' home with something of her old confidence restored.

Despite their goodness--Claudia could not question that--how poor, she thought, looked their simple ways! Aunt Jane sat, as aforetime, at one side of the fireplace, Aunt Ruth at the other. Aunt Jane was knitting with red wool, as she had always knitted since Claudia had known her.

Aunt Ruth, with an equal devotion to habit, was working her way through a piece of embroidery. Molossus, the toy terrier, was asleep in Aunt Jane's lap; Scipio reposed luxuriously at Aunt Ruth's feet.

[Sidenote: Mild Excitement]

It was a peaceful scene; yet it had its mild excitements. The two aunts began at once to explain.

"We are so glad you are come in," said Aunt Jane.

"Because old Rooker has been," said Aunt Ruth.

"And with such good news! He has heard from his boy----"

"His boy, you know, who ran away," continued Aunt Ruth.

"He is coming home in a month or two, just to see his father, and is then going back again----"

"Back again to America, you know----"

"Where he is doing well----"

"And he sends his father five pounds----"

"And now the old man says he will not need our half-a-crown a week any longer----"

"So we can give it to old Mrs. Wimple, his neighbour----"

"A great sufferer, you know, and oh, so patient."

"Really!" said Claudia, a little confused by this antiphonal kind of narrative.

"Yes," continued Aunt Jane, "and I see a letter has come in for you--from home, I think. So this has been quite an eventful morning."

Claudia took the letter and went up to her own room, reflecting a little ungratefully upon the contentment which reigned below.

She opened her letter. It was, she saw, from her mother, written, apparently, at two or three sittings, for the last sheet contained a most voluminous postscript. She read the opening page of salutation, and then laid it down to prepare for luncheon. Musing as she went about her room, time slipped away, and the gong was rumbling out its call before she was quite ready to go down.

She hurried away, and the letter was left unfinished. It caught her eye in the afternoon; but again Claudia was hurried, and resolved that it could very well wait until she returned at night.

The club was amusing. Mrs. Warwick, its leading spirit, pleasantly mingled a certain motherly sympathy with an unconventional habit of manner and speech. There was an address or lecture during the evening by a middle-aged woman of great fluency, who rather astounded Claudia by the freest possible a.s.sumption, and by the most sweeping criticism of the established order of things as it affected women. The general conversation of the members seemed, however, no less frivolous, though much less restrained, than she had heard in drawing-rooms at home.

She parted from Sarah Griffin at the door of the club, and drove to St.

John's Wood in a hansom. The repose of the house had not been stirred in her absence. Aunt Jane, Aunt Ruth, Molossus, and Scipio, all were in their accustomed places.

"And here is another letter for you, my dear," said Aunt Jane. "I hope the other brought good news?"

Claudia blushed a healthy, honest, old-fashioned blush. She had forgotten that letter. Its opening page or so had alone been glanced at.

Aunt Jane looked astonished at the confession, but with her placid good-nature added: "Of course, my dear, it was the little excitement of this evening."

"So natural to young heads," said Aunt Ruth, with a shake of her curls.

But Claudia was ashamed of herself, and ran upstairs for the first letter.

[Sidenote: Startling News]

A hasty glance showed her that, whilst it began in ordinary gossip, the long postscript dealt with a more serious subject. Mr. Haberton was ill; he had driven home late at night from a distance, and had taken a chill.

Mrs. Haberton hoped it would pa.s.s off; Claudia was not to feel alarmed; Pinsett had again proved herself invaluable, and between them they could nurse the patient comfortably.

Claudia hastened to the second letter. Her fears were justified. Her father was worse; pneumonia had set in; the doctor was anxious; they were trying to secure a trained nurse; perhaps Claudia would like to return as soon as she got the letter.

"When did this come?" asked Claudia eagerly.

"A very few moments after you left," said Aunt Jane. "Of course, if you had been here, you might just have caught the eight o'clock train--very late, my dear, for you to go by, but with your father so ill----" And Aunt Jane wiped a tear away.

Claudia also wept.

"Can nothing be done to-night?" she presently cried. "_Must_ I wait till to-morrow? He may be----" But she did not like to finish the sentence.

Aunt Ruth had risen to the occasion; she was already adjusting her spectacles with trembling hands in order to explore the _A B C Timetable_. A very brief examination of the book showed that Claudia could not get home that night. They could only wait until morning.

Claudia spent a sleepless night. She had come up to London to find a mission in life. The first great sorrow had fallen upon her home in her absence, and by an inexcusable preoccupation she had perhaps made it impossible to reach home before her father's death.

She knew that pneumonia often claimed its victims swiftly; she might reach home too late.

Her father had been good to her in his own rather stern way. He was not a small, weak, or peevish character. To have helped him in sickness would have seemed a pleasant duty even to Claudia, who had contrived to overlook her mother's frail health. And others were serving him--that weak mother; Pinsett, too; and perhaps a hired nurse. It was unbearable.

"My dear," said Aunt Jane, as Claudia wept aloud, "we are in our heavenly Father's hands; let us ask Him to keep your dear father at least until you see him."

So those two old maids with difficulty adjusted their stiff knees to kneeling, and, as Aunt Jane lifted her quavering voice in a few sentences of simple prayer, she laid a trembling hand protectingly on Claudia.