"Your uncle! I was so amazed and stupefied yesterday that I don't know whether I told him, and if I did, I don't think he believed me."
"Here he comes," said Barbara, as the wheels of his dog-cart were heard below the window.
"Ask him to come up. It will be a terrible blow to him. This place has been as much to him as to any of us, if not more."
"Mother, how brave you are!" cried Jock.
"I have known it longer than you have, my dear. Besides, the mere loss is nothing compared with that which led to it. The worst of it is the overthrow of all your prospects, my dear fellow."
"Oh," said Jock, brightly, "it only means that we have something and somebody to work for now;" and he threw his arms round her waist and kissed her.
"Oh! my dear, dear boy, don't! Don't upset me, or your uncle will think it is about this."
"And don't, for Heaven's sake, talk as if it were all up with us," cried Bobus.
By this time the Colonel's ponderous tread was near, and Caroline met him with an apology for giving him the trouble of the ascent, but said that she had wanted to see him in private.
"Is this in private?" asked the Colonel, looking at the five young people.
"Yes. They have a right to know all. Here it is, Robert."
He sat down, deliberately put on his spectacles, took the will, read it once, and groaned, read it twice, and groaned more deeply, and then said-
"My poor dear sister! This is a bad business! a severe reverse! a very severe reverse!"
"He has hit on his catch-word," thought Caroline, and Jock's arm still round her gave a little pressure, as if the thought had occurred to him. The moment of amusement gave a cheerfulness to her voice as she said-
"We have been doing sad injustice all this time; that is the worst of it. For the rest, we shall be no worse off than we were before."
"It will be in Allen's power to make up to you a good deal. That is a fortunate arrangement, but I am afraid it cannot take place till the girl is of age."
"You are all in such haste," said Bobus. "It would take a good deal to make me accept such an informal scrap as this. No doubt one could drive a coach and horses through it."
"That would not lessen the injustice," said his mother.
"Could there not be a compromise?" said Allen.
"That is nonsense," said his uncle. "Either _this_ will stand, or _that_, and I am afraid this is the later. April 18th. Was that the time of that absurd practical joke of yours?"
"Too true," said Allen. "You recollect the old brute said I should remember it."
"Witnesses-? There's Gomez, the servant who was drowned on his way out after his dismissal-Elizabeth Brook-is it-servant. -Who is to find her out?"
"Richards may know."
"It is not our business to hunt up the witnesses. That's the look- out of the other party," said Bobus impatiently.
"You don't suppose I mean to contest it?" said his mother. "It is bad enough to go on as we have been doing these eight years. I only want to know what is right and truth, and if this be a real will."
"Where did it come from?" asked the Colonel, coming to the critical question. "Did you say you found it yourself, Caroline?"
"Yes."
"Where?"
"In the old bureau."
"What! the one that stood in his study? You don't say so! I saw Wakefield turn the whole thing out, and look for any secret drawer before I would take any steps; I could have sworn that not the thickness of that sheet of paper escaped us. I should like, if only out of curiosity, to see where it was."
"Just as I said, mother," said Bobus; "there's no use in trying to blink it to any one who knows the circumstances."
"You do not insinuate that there was any foul play!" said his uncle hotly.
"I don't know what else it can be called," said Caroline, faintly; "but please, Robert, and all the rest, don't expose her. Poor Janet found the thing in the back of the bedside table-drawer, fancied it a mere rough draft, and childlike, put it out of sight in the bureau, where I lighted on it in looking for something else. Surely there is no need to mention her?"
"Not if you do not contest the will," replied the Colonel, who looked thunderstruck; "but if you did, it must all come out to exonerate us, the executors, from shameful carelessness. Well, we shall see what Wakefield says! A severe reverse! a very severe reverse!"
When he found that Bobus meant to go in search of the lawyer that afternoon, he decided on accompanying him. And with a truly amazing burst of intuition, he even suggested carrying off Elvira to spend the day with Essie and Ellie, and even that an invitation might arise to stay all night, or as long as the first suspense lasted. Then muttering to himself, "A severe reverse-a most severe reverse!" he took his leave. Caroline went down stairs with him, as thinking she could the most naturally administer the invitation to Elvira, and the two eldest sons proceeded to make arrangements for the time of meeting and the journey.
"A severe reverse!" said Jock, finding himself alone with the younger ones. "When one has a bitter draught, it is at least a consolation to have labelled it right."
"Shall we be very poor, Jock?" asked Barbara.
"I don't know what we were called before," he said; "but from what I remember, I fancy we had about what I have been using for my private delectation. Just enough for my mother and you to be jolly upon."
"That's all you think of!" said Armine.
"All that a man need think of," said Jock; "as long as mother and Babie are comfortable, we can do for ourselves very well."
"Ourselves!" said Armine, bitterly. "And how about this wretched place that we have neglected shamefully all these years!"
"Armine!" cried Jock, indignantly. "Why, you are talking of mother!"
"Mother says so herself."
"You went on raging about it; and, just like her, she did not defend herself. I am sure she has given away loads of money."
"But see what is wanting! The curate, and the school chapel, and the cottages; and if the school is not enlarged, they will have a school board. And what am I to say to Miss Parsons? I promised to bring mother's answer about the curate this afternoon at latest."
"If she has the sense of a wren, she must know that a cataclysm like Janet's may account for a few trifling omissions."
"That's true," said Babie! "She can't expect it. Do you know, I am rather sorry we are not poorer? I hoped we should have to live in a very small way, and that I should have to work like you-for mother."
"Not like us, for pity's sake, Infanta!" cried Jock. "We have had enough of that. The great use of you is to look after mother; and keep her from galloping the life out of herself, and this chap from worrying it out of her."
"Jock!" cried Armine, indignantly.
"Yes, you will, if you go on moaning about these fads, and making her blame herself for them. I don't say we have all done the right thing with this money, I'm sure I have not, and most likely it serves us right to lose it, but to have mother teased about what, after all, was chiefly owing to her absence, is more than I will stand. The one duty in hand is to make the best of it for her. I shall run down again as soon as I hear how this is likely to turn out-for Sunday, perhaps. Keep up a good heart, Babie Bunting, and whatever you do, don't let him worry mother. Good-bye, Armie! What's the use of being good, if you can't hold up against a thing like this?"
"Jock doesn't know," said Armine, as the door closed. "Fads indeed!"
"Jock didn't mean that," pleaded Babie. "You know he did not; dear, good Jock, he could not!"
"Jock is a good fellow, but he lives a frivolous, self-indulgent life, and has got infected with the spirit and the language," said Armine, "or he would understand that myself or my own loss is the very last thing I am troubled about. No, indeed, I should never think of that! It is the ruin of these poor people and all I meant to have done for them. It is very strange that we should only be allowed to waken to a sense of our opportunities to have them taken away from us!"