"And so, ma'am, we are going as soon as ever we can let the house and sell our bits of furniture. The house we could get rid of fast enough, but no one wants the furniture, and my husband he is loth to let it go for what the brokers offer."

"What do they offer?" asked Dolly.

"For every stick and stool in the house thirty shillings."

"And how much do you think they ought to give?" asked Dolly.

"Why my master he says as how we ought not to take less nor five pound for the furniture, and two pound for the cropped garden and fowl-house, and sty and woodshed, all of which he builded with his own hands; but there's a sight of counting in that money, and people like us have all their beds and chairs and tables, and I wish he'd take the dealer's offer and be done with it, for I am longing to see my boy once more."

Dolly turned her face aside, and looked at the fire.

"What is the rent of this place?" she inquired.

"Four pound eleven a year, ma'am; and though that do sound high, still it is a cheap place at the money, for there's a fine big garden and that orchard you see, and it needn't stand empty an hour if only my master would give in about the furniture."

"How many rooms have you?" Dolly asked.

"We have as good as four upstair; but two of them are open like on the stairs. We use them for storing things, and there is this house; we call the front room 'the house' in these parts, ma'am, and the back place, and another back place where the stairs lead out, and--"

"Might I see it?" Dolly entreated, "I should like to see it so much."

"You'll excuse the place being in a bit of a muddle?" answered the other, as she led the way about her small territory.

"Good Heavens! if this is a muddle, what must apple-pie order be?"

thought Mrs. Mortomley, as she looked at the well-scrubbed stairs, at the snow-white boards, at the chest of drawers bees-waxed till she saw her own reflection in them better than in the looking-glass, off which half the quicksilver had peeled; at the patch-work counterpane, which, though probably half a century old, still shone forth resplendent with red and yellow and green, and all the colours of the rainbow.

"I do not care to see the garden," said Dolly when they were once more in the back place; "and I have seen the orchard. I will take the house off your hands, and your furniture, and your crops, at your own price; I have not so much money with me, but I will leave you what I have in my purse, and I will send down again any day you name, in order to pay you the balance still owing and to take possession."

"You, ma'am!" repeated the woman.

"Yes," answered Dolly; "I have a husband who is in bad health, and I must get him away from London for a short time. We cannot afford to take a large house. We can make this answer our purpose, so now give me a receipt for three pounds ten, on account--and--"

"I can't write," was the reply.

"Well, I will leave my address, and your husband can send me one,"

suggested Dolly.

"He is no more a schollard nor me," said the woman.

Was this the reason Dolly wondered, why at their age they were willing to give up their home and country and go so far away to join the whilom prodigal? Not to be able to send a line, without that line being indited by other fingers, seen by other eyes; not to be able to understand the contents of a letter save by the aid of a third person's reading! It was certainly very pitiful, Dolly considered.

"It is of no consequence," she remarked, after a moment's pause devoted to thinking this aspect of the educational question over. "Here are three pounds ten shillings, and perhaps you can get some of your neighbours to send me a line, saying when you wish to leave. Good-bye, I hope you may have a pleasant voyage, and find your son well and happy at the end of it."

And so Dolly retired mistress of the position; and so all unconsciously she had frustrated the schemes of the poor old father, who, not wishing to cross his wife, and not wanting to leave England, had put what he considered a prohibitory price on his effects, and refused to leave unless that were given for them.

"It is God's will, and I dare not gainsay it," he muttered to himself, when he grasped the full meaning of his wife's breathless revelation.

"But it is nought less nor a miracle--what parson tells us a Sundays ain't a bit more wonderful. It is main hard though, for me at my age though, to be taken at my word like this."

From which utterance it will be seen he never thought of going back from his word; indeed, regarding Dolly's visit as he did, it is probable he imagined some judgment might fall upon him if he tried to put any further impediment in the way.

As for Dolly, once she got possession of the place, she sent Esther down with full directions how she was to proceed to make it habitable. Papers were forwarded from London--papers cheap, light, pretty; and with the help of two local workmen, who "contracted" for the job, the whole house was whitewashed, papered, and painted, in ten days. Dogs took the place of the old-fashioned rickety grate, the outer door was taken off its hinges, and a new one, the upper part of which was of glass, put in its place. A modest porch of trellis-work shaded this door, and over it grew roses and honeysuckle, which were duly trained by a superannuated labourer, who, thankful for a week's work, laid down that grass-plot Dolly's heart desired, at a rate of wage which made Mrs. Mortomley feel ashamed as she paid him the price agreed on.

To persons who have been accustomed to yield up their houses to a professional decorator, and allow him to work his will as to cost of material and price of labour, and the amount of improvement to be effected, it may seem that Mrs. Mortomley must, in making her old cottage into a new one, have spent a considerable sum of money.

This was not the case; and yet when Dolly came to go through her accounts, which meant, in her case, counting over the sovereigns still remaining, she felt she had exceeded the original estimate it was her intention to adhere to, and that she must economize very strictly in the future if her noble was not soon to be brought down to ninepence.

Mr. Mortomley had with much difficulty extracted ten pounds from the treasury at Salisbury House, for his attendance at Mr. Swanland's offices, and a wonderful thing had happened to Dolly.

Rupert not merely repaid the money he borrowed, but added twenty pounds to the amount.

"I have had a great piece of good fortune happen to me," he wrote, "and I send you share of it; I leave for the Continent next month, in company with Mr. Althorpe, a young gentleman possessed of plenty of money and no brains to speak of. He pays all my expenses, and gives me a handsome salary in addition. You may expect to see me next Saturday. I long to see your cottage, and will arrange to stay until Tuesday morning."

So Rupert was the first visitor, recalling the old days departed, who crossed the threshold of the new home, and to whom Dolly could expatiate on the improvements she had effected.

"You have done wonders," said Rupert, standing beside her in the little garden which commanded a view of the Lee, winding away through pleasant meadows. "It is really a marvellous little nest to have constructed out of your materials, but," he added suddenly, "Archie does not like it--Archie is breaking his heart here."

"Archie will have to like it," returned Dolly, and there was a tone in her voice Rupert had never heard in it before. "There is no good in a man kicking against the pricks, and pining for things even those who love him best cannot give him. I shall have to tell him, Rupert; I feel that, whether ill or well, it is time he took his share of the burden with me. The sooner he knows, the sooner he will be able to look our position straight in the face. I wish I was not such a coward. I cannot endure the idea of letting him into the secret that everything has gone, that there is not a thing left."

She spoke less passionately than despairingly. In truth, the change from which she had anticipated such good results, proved the last straw which broke her back.

She, understanding their position, had felt thankful to realise that even so humble a home was possible for them until her husband's health should be re-established, and the sight of his ill-concealed despair when he beheld the cottage, proved a shock as great to her as his new home to Mortomley.

For months and months she had been reconciling herself to the inevitable--schooling herself to forget the past and look forward to a future when Archie would take an interest in the modest little factory she and Lang were to prepare, and learn to find happiness in the tiny home she had tried so hard to beautify--but it came upon him suddenly.

He had not realised the full change in his circumstances when he left Homewood, or when he struggled back to consciousness from long illness at Upper Clapton; not when he had to attend at Mr. Swanland's offices; not when the Thames Street warehouse was closed, and one of his own clerks started a feeble business there on the strength of his late employer's name and connection; not when the last sale took place at Homewood--no, not once till on the morning after his arrival at Wood Cottage, (so Dolly christened the new home), he rose early, and walking round the house and surveying his small territory, comprehended vaguely there was something still for him to know; that Dolly was keeping some terrible secret.

"He knows all about it as well as you, you may depend," Rupert said in reply to Dolly's last sentence; "nothing you can tell him now will be news to him."

But Dolly shook her head.

Her instinct was clearer than Rupert's reason, and she felt certain if her husband only knew the worst, he would nerve himself to face it more bravely than he could this vague intangible trouble.

"I will tell him," she declared to Rupert, and then like a coward put off doing so till Mortomley himself broke the ice by asking,

"Dolly, how long do you propose remaining in this charming locality?"

"Do you not think it charming?" she inquired. "I think the walks about are lovely, and the air so pure, and the scenery so calm and peaceful--"

"Granted, my love; but it is a place one would soon grow very tired of.

I must honestly confess I find time hang very heavily on my hands already."

"Don't say that, don't," she entreated.

"But, Dolly, if it be true why should I not say it?" he inquired.

"Because, my poor dear," and Dolly laid a trembling hand on his shoulder, "I am afraid you will have to stay here and learn to like and find your interests in it."

He took her hand in his, and turned so that he could see her face.