"How much is it, father?" she asked.

"Oh, five pounds will do," he said, vaguely. "There are one or two

other books."

She made a hasty calculation: five pounds was a large sum to her; but

she smiled as she said: "You are very extravagant, dear. There is already a copy of the

'Reliques' in the library."

He looked confused for a moment, then he said: "But not with these notes--not with these notes! They're valuable, and

the book is cheap."

"Very well, dear," she responded; and she went to the antique bureau

and, unlocking it, took a five-pound note from a cedar box.

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He watched her covertly, with a painful eagerness.

"I suppose you have a large nest egg there, eh, Ida?" he remarked, with

a quavering laugh.

"No: a very little one," she responded. "'Not nearly enough to pay the

quarterly bills. But never mind, dear; there it is. You must show me

the books when they come; I never saw the last you ordered, you know!"

He took the note with an assumption of indifference but with a gleam of

satisfaction in his sunken eyes.

"Didn't you?" he said. "I must have forgotten. You're always so busy;

but I'll show you these, if you'll remind me. You must be careful of

the money, Ida; you must keep down the expenses. We're poor, very poor,

you know; and the cost of living and servants is very great--very

great."

He wandered off to the library, muttering to himself, with his book

under his arm, and the five-pound note gripped tightly in the hand

which he had thrust into the pocket of his dressing-gown; and Ida, as

she put on her habit and went into the stable-yard to have the colt

saddled, sighed as she thought that it would be nice to have just, for

once, enough money to meet all the bills and buy all the books her

father coveted.

But her melancholy was not of long duration. The colt was in high

spirits, and the task of impressing him with the fact that he had now

reached a responsible age and must behave like a horse, with something

else before him in life than kicking up his heels in the paddock, soon

drove the thought of their poverty from her mind and sent the blood

leaping warmly and wildly in her veins.

She spent the afternoon in breaking in the colt, and succeeded in

keeping Stafford Orme out of her thoughts; but he slid into them again

as she sat by the drawing-room fire after dinner--the nights are often

cool in the dales all through early summer--and recalled the

earnestness in his handsome face when he pleaded to be allowed to "help

her."




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