To splash through the wet streets to Betty King's or elsewhere was an expedition rather agreeable to Francis, in his eagerness; otherwise there was no particular necessity for his going.
"I am sorry mamma is not up," said Jane. "She suffers from occasional sick-headaches, and they generally keep her in bed for the day. I will give you any information in my power."
"Your brother Francis thought—that it might not be disagreeable to Mr. Tait to receive a stranger into his family," said Mr. Halliburton, speaking with some hesitation. But the young lady before him looked so lady-like, the house altogether seemed so well appointed, that he almost doubted whether the proposal would not offend her.
"We wish to receive some one," said Jane. "The house is sufficiently large to do so, and papa would like it for the sake of society: as well as that it would help in our housekeeping," she added, in her candour. "A friend of papa's was with us—I cannot remember precisely how many years, but he came when I was a little girl. It was the Rev. Mr. Acton. He left us last October."
"I feel sure that I should like it very much: and I should think myself fortunate if Mr. Tait would admit me," spoke the visitor.
Jane remembered the suggestion of Francis, and deemed it her duty to speak a little to Mr. Halliburton of "how he would be there," as it had been expressed. She might have done so without the suggestion, for she could not be otherwise than straightforward and open.
"We live very plainly," she observed. "A simple joint of meat one day; cold, with a pudding, the next."
"I should consider myself fortunate to get the pudding," replied Mr. Halliburton, smiling. "I have been tossed about a good deal of late years, Miss Tait, and have not come in for too much comfort. Just now I am in very uncomfortable lodgings."
"I dare say papa would like to have you," said Jane, frankly, with a sort of relief. She had thought he looked one who might be fastidious.
"I have neither father nor mother, brother nor sister," he resumed. "In fact, I may say that I am without relatives; for almost the only one I have has discarded me. I often think how rich those people must be who possess close connections and a happy home," he added, turning his bright glance upon her.
Jane dropped her work, which she had taken up. "I don't know what I should do without all my dear relatives," she exclaimed.
"Are you a large family?"
"We are six. Papa and mamma, and four children. I am the eldest, and Margaret is the youngest; Francis and Robert are between us. It is breaking-up night at Margaret's school, and she has gone to it with Robert," continued Jane, never doubting but the stranger must take as much interest in "breaking-up nights" as she did. "I was to have gone; but mamma has been unusually ill to-day."
"Were you disappointed?"
Jane bent her head while she confessed the fact, as though feeling it a confession to be ashamed of. "It would not have been kind to leave mamma," she added, "and I dare say some other pleasure will arise soon. Mamma is asleep now."
"What a charming girl!" thought Mr. Halliburton to himself. "How I wish she was my sister!"
"Margaret is to be a governess," observed Jane, "and is being educated for it. She has great talent for music, and also for drawing; it is not often the two are united. Her tastes lie quite that way—anything clever; and as papa has no money to give us, it was well to make her a governess."
"And you?" said Mr. Halliburton. The question might have been thought an impertinent one by many, but he spoke it only in his deep interest, and Jane Tait was of too ingenuous a disposition not to answer it as openly.
"I am not to be a governess. I am to stay at home with mamma and help her. There is plenty to do. Margaret cannot bear domestic duties, or sewing either. Dancing excepted, I have not learnt a single accomplishment—unless you call French an accomplishment."
"I am sure you have been well educated!" involuntarily spoke Mr. Halliburton.
"Yes; in all things solid," replied Jane. "Papa has taken care of that. He still directs my reading. I know a good bit—of—Latin"—she added, bringing out the concluding words with hesitation, as one who repents his sentence—"though I do not like to confess it to you."
"Why do you not?"
"Because I think girls who know Latin are laughed at. I did not regularly learn it, but I used to be in the room when papa or Mr. Acton was teaching Francis and Robert, and I picked it up unconsciously. Mr. Acton often took Francis; he had more time on his hands than papa. Francis is to be a clergyman."
"Miss Jane," said a servant, entering the room, "Mrs. Tait is awake, and wishes to see you."
Jane left Mr. Halliburton with a word of apology, and almost immediately after Mr. Tait came in. He was a little taken to when he saw the stranger. His imagination had run, if not upon an "old guy" in spectacles, certainly upon some steady, sober, middle-aged mathematical master. Would it be well to admit this young, good-looking man to his house.
If Jane Tait had been candid in her revelations to Mr. Halliburton, that gentleman, in his turn, was not less candid to her father. He, Edgar Halliburton, was the only child of a country clergyman, the Rev. William Halliburton, who had died when Edgar was sixteen, leaving nothing behind him. Edgar—he had previously lost his mother—found a home with his late mother's brother, a gentleman named Cooper, who resided in Birmingham. Mr. Cooper was a man in extensive wholesale business, and wished Edgar to go into his counting-house. Edgar declined. His father had lived long enough to form his tastes: his greatest wish had been to see him enter the Church; and the wish had become Edgar's own. Mr. Cooper thought there was nothing in the world like business: and looked upon that most sacred of all callings, God's ministry, only in the light of a profession. He had carved out his own career, step by step, attaining wealth and importance, and wished his nephew to do the same. "Which is best, lad?" he coarsely asked: "To rule as a merchant prince, or starve and toil as a curate? I'm not quite a merchant prince yet, but you may be." "It was my father's wish," pleaded Edgar in answer, "and it is my own. I cannot give it up, sir." The dispute ran high—not in words, but in obstinacy. Edgar would not yield, and at length Mr. Cooper discarded him. He turned him out of doors: told him that, if he must become a parson, he might get some one else to pay his expenses at Oxford, for he never would. Edgar Halliburton proceeded to London, and obtained employment as an usher in a school, teaching classics and mathematics. From that he became a private teacher, and had so earned his living up to the present time: but he had never succeeded in getting to college. And Mr. Tait, before they had talked together five minutes, was charmed with his visitor, and invited him to take tea with him, which Jane came down to make.
"Has your uncle never softened towards you?" Mr. Tait inquired.
"Never. I have addressed several letters to him, but they have been returned to me."
"He has no family, you say. You ought—in justice, you ought to inherit some of his wealth. Has he other relatives?"
"He has one standing to him in the same relationship as I—my Cousin Julia. It is not likely that I shall ever inherit a shilling of it, sir. I do not expect it."
"Right," said Mr. Tait, nodding his head approvingly. "There's no work so thriftless as that of waiting for legacies. Wearying, too. I was a poor curate, Mr. Halliburton, for twenty years—indeed, so far as being poor goes, I am not much else now—but let that pass. I had a relative who possessed money, and who had neither kith nor kin nearer to her than I was. For the best part of those twenty years I was giving covert hopes to that money; and when she died, and NOTHING was left to me, I found out how foolish and wasteful my hopes had been. I tell my children to trust to their own honest exertions, but never to trust to other people's money. Allow me to urge the same upon you."
Mr. Halliburton's lips and eyes alike smiled, as he looked gratefully at the rector, a man so much older than himself. "I never think of it," he earnestly said. "It appears, for me, to be as thoroughly lost as though it did