"Well, well, you may have a baby yet, only you would find you'd have to be more particular as to bits and pieces strewed everywhere," and Mrs.

Pryor stooped to pick up some leaves which Salome had dropped as she filled the two stiff white vases with the Maplestone flowers.

Mrs. Wilton and the boys were expected that evening. Raymond and Reginald were to meet them at the station; and Salome had been following Stevens about the house, giving finishing touches here and there, and trying to hope her mother would be pleased. The "parlour," now called the drawing-room, was wonderfully improved by pushing the table back against the wall, and covering it with books and a little flower-basket from the old home. Then there was a "nest" of small tables, which Salome and Stevens separated, and covered two of them with some bits of scarlet cloth, round which some lace was run by Stevens. On these tables some photographs were set in little frames, and two brackets were nailed up with a book-shelf. Salome looked round with some satisfaction as the sun struggled through the clouds and seemed to smile on her efforts.

Reginald enjoyed all the wrenching of nails from boxes and running out on messages; and altogether things a.s.sumed a brighter aspect.

Raymond had been out the greater part of the two days, and only came in to meals. He was moody and disagreeable: selfish and discontented in the days of prosperity, he naturally made no effort to sweeten the days of adversity.

"Have you got any money, Salome?" he asked his sister, as she sat down in the dining-room with ink and pens before her and a large blotting-case, which had once been a music portfolio, and was now filled with a great variety of scribbled paper, the beginnings of many stories which had been read to her little brothers by the nursery fire at Maplestone, and were considered, by them at least, the "jolliest tales that were ever told--much jollier than printed books."

Out of this chaotic heap Salome thought of forming a story for children, of which visions floated before her, bound in olive green, and embossed with gold, and ill.u.s.trated with pictures, and advertised in the papers!

Only Reginald was to be in the secret. And then the joy of giving her mother the money she should get for her book. The little heap of gold was already rising from ten to twenty, nay, to thirty sovereigns, when Raymond's question broke in on her dream,--

"I say, Salome, have you got any money?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'I say, Salome, have you got any money?'" _Page 80._]

"Money! No, Raymond, only a few shillings; but mother will have some this afternoon."

"Well, you see, I spent nearly a pound of my own for the tickets, and the omnibus, and cab, and porters."

"Not for the omnibus and cab. I gave Reginald seven shillings for them.

And as to the tickets, you ought not to have taken first cla.s.s tickets.

One was a waste, because Reginald did not use it."

"A lucky thing I had the sense to take first cla.s.s tickets. Fancy St.

Clair finding _me_ in a third cla.s.s carriage--and _you_, worse still! If Reginald was such a fool, I can't help it, it was not my concern; but I have a right to look after you, and I know my father would never have allowed you or Ada to travel third cla.s.s with a lot of half-tipsy navvies, for all I could tell."

Raymond said this with a grandly magnanimous air, as if he were to be commended for brotherly attention.

Salome bit the end of her pen-holder, and could scarcely repress a smile, but she only said,--

"What do you want money for, Raymond?"

"What do I want it for? That's my business. I am not going into Roxburgh without a penny in my pocket. It's not likely."

"Well," Salome said, "I hope you will not tease mother for money. I hope you will spare her as much as you can. I believe I have some money of my own,--ten or twelve shillings,--and I can let you have it, or some of it." Salome put her hand in her pocket to get out her purse. Alas! no purse was there. "I must have left it upstairs," she said.

And Raymond exclaimed,--

"A nice hand you'll make of keeping money for the family."

"Stevens," Salome said, rushing up to Stevens, "have you seen my purse?"

"No; you've never lost it?"

"I can't have lost it.--Reginald,--I say, Reginald, have you seen my purse? I thought it was in my pocket."

Reginald called out from his mother's bed-room, where he was fastening up a bracket for her little clock,--

"What do you say you've lost?"

"Oh, my purse, Reginald! what _shall_ I do?" and Salome wildly turned out a drawer in the room which she was to share with Ada, and left it in dire confusion.

"Dear me, Miss Salome, pray don't make work like that," said Stevens. "I do wish you would learn to take care of your own things at least. You never was fit to look after money."

Salome was in despair, when Reginald came out of his mother's room holding the lost purse on high.

"O Reginald, where did you find it? You might have told me before. It was a shame. Where _did_ you find it?"

"Under the table in the dining-room last evening," and he tossed the purse to her, saying, "It's not very heavy. But you _should_ be careful, Salome; you are awfully careless."

"Don't be rude, Reginald; it's not for you to take me to task. Mind your own business, please."

"Hallo! there's a carriage. It's Uncle Loftus; yes, that it is,"

exclaimed Reginald. "He has not hurried himself to look after us, I must say."

Salome felt a nervous fear of her uncle, and stood irresolute at the top of the narrow stairs.

"Come down with me, Reginald," she said; "do come."

"Oh no, you'll get on better alone," Reginald said; "and Raymond is downstairs."

"The doctor, Miss Wilton," said Mrs. Pryor, in a tone which seemed to imply that some one was very ill. "The doctor," she repeated, looking up from the narrow hall at Salome.

Salome went down slowly, and her heart beat so loud she could almost hear it. Her Uncle Loftus brought back the memory of her father so vividly. He resembled him, as brothers do often resemble each other--a family likeness, which starts out always more forcibly when one of that family is gone.

"Well, my dear child," Dr. Wilton said, advancing to Salome when at last she opened the door, "how are you getting on? You are quite comfortable here, I hope. It really looks very nice and home-like. It was the best we could do for you. I heard from your mother yesterday, and she says she is coming this afternoon with the children and--and--" (Dr. Wilton could not fit the sister with a name) "your sister. I will try to meet your mother, and bring her up in the carriage. I have to be at the hospital in Harstone at four o'clock, and I think I can just manage to get to the Elm Fields Station at five. The boys must meet the train too, and they and the children and the luggage can come up in the omnibus."

"Thank you, Uncle Loftus," Salome said gently. "I am very glad mamma should drive up in the carriage."

"What a quiet, demure little thing she is," thought Dr. Wilton. "Where are your brothers?" he asked.

"I thought Raymond was here," Salome said, rising as if to call him.

"No; do not call him now. I wanted to tell you that I have, I hope, succeeded in getting him into a merchant's office in Harstone. It really is a most difficult thing to provide for boys in these days, as I shall find. All professions need so much outlay to begin with--articles for the law, and so on. But Mr. Warde, out of respect to your poor father's memory, says he will take your brother on, at a nominal salary of twenty pounds, just to keep him in clothes; and considering the calamity at Fairchester, I think it is better the boy should start clear here.

Reginald must have another year at school, I suppose, and I will speak to Dr. Stracey about it. The term does not begin till the middle of September. The little boys you and Ada can manage between you, I daresay."

"Oh yes," Salome said; "I can do their lessons at present."

"That's right. You know your poor father's affairs are in such a fearful mess that it is impossible to tell yet how things stand. The liquidation of the Central Bank will go on for years. A heavy overdraft there is the ugliest part of the matter."

"An overdraft!" poor Salome exclaimed; "I don't understand!"

"No, my dear, you can't understand, I daresay. But, as I told you, your poor mother's income is secure, and on that you must all make up your minds to live till better times. It is just three hundred a year."

Three hundred a year conveyed a very hazy idea to Salome.

"How much had we a year at Maplestone, Uncle Loftus?"