"So you can, mother," said he, all in a hurry, giving her a kiss. "So you can. I'm due back at the works, and mustn't wait. We'll talk it over in the evening, by-and-by. And Sue shall have her silk dress as soon as ever she likes. It makes a man feel all dazed to think of! Five thousand pounds!"
And he was gone. Mother ran away to tell the neighbours, and grannie took me upstairs into the little room which she and I had together. She didn't make but a short prayer, only it was one which I never could forget.
[CHAPTER III.]
THE MONEY.
"Who told you about it, Miles?" asked grannie at tea-time.
Father had come back, and we all felt very much excited still, as was only natural, I suppose. Grannie looked sad, I thought, but she was the only one to seem so. I had had a restless feeling on me all day, which made it difficult, to settle to work. I don't think I should have settled to it at all, but for grannie's being so bent upon everything going on just the same as usual. She would not abate one jot of cleaning and washing and scouring for herself or for me. But mother did nothing whatever the whole day, except stand at the door, and talk to the neighbours. The news spread quickly, and numbers came to ask what it meant. Some seemed really pleased for us, but they were few. The greater number, as far as I could tell from scraps of talk which I heard in going to and fro, were more inclined to be jealous, and to wonder why such good fortune should have come to us and not to them.
And at tea-time grannie put the question,—"Who told you about it, Miles?"
"Why, it was the lawyer who had the making of the will—a Mr. Carver. It was him and young Mr. Johnstone," father said. "The lawyer came over by train from Lanston this morning, and he told Mr. Johnstone first, and then they sent for me and told me. Mr. Johnstone said I was a lucky man, and he shook hands with me—first time he ever thought of doing that."
"Young Mr. Johnstone isn't near so stuck-up as his father," mother said.
"He's more of a gentleman," added grannie; "that's why."