Jack was very merry that evening, or he seemed so. It always did my heart good to hear his laugh; and I remember how often it sounded, and how I looked at him and Cress, wondering in my heart what was to be the future of those two boys. It is well for us that the future is hidden, and life’s volume unfolds page by page. Sufficient for the day is the duty as well as the evil thereof.
Jack was tall for his years, and broad-shouldered, with warm healthy colouring and honest grey eyes like Cherry’s. Cress was short and thin, with pale handsome features, and his curly light hair and blue eyes resembled mine. He seemed that evening listless and fretful—no uncommon event—and snapped often at Jack. But nothing ever put Jack out of temper.
[CHAPTER II.]
“SOME ONE UNEXPECTED.”
TEA was coming to an end when the postman’s knock sounded, and Ted rushed upstairs for what had come. That was his privilege, as our youngest. The postman was not wont to rap often at our door, for we had no spare money to spend in unnecessary correspondence.
“It’s for mother,” Ted cried, as he dropped a square envelope in front of me, and bounced down on his chair.
The arrival of a letter generally caused some excitement in our quiet life; but I knew well enough who it was from, even before my eyes fell upon the handwriting; and so did the others. My husband said, “Aunt Briscoe, of course;” for she was as regular as clockwork in her ways, and never failed to write to him or me on Thursday morning, so that we might hear on Thursday evening. I cannot say why she chose Thursday. Perhaps all her correspondents were parcelled out among the days of the week.
I did not expect the letter to contain anything of particular interest; still we were all pleased to hear from her.
Mrs. Briscoe was my husband’s Aunt by marriage; and in his boyhood she and her husband had often asked him and his younger brother Churton to stay with them, at their pretty little country home, not far from London. Mr. Briscoe had died only three years before the time of which I am writing. He had left all he had to his widow, and she lived on at “The Gables:” by no means then so country-like a residence as in Robert’s boyish days, yet pretty enough still.
Mr. Briscoe’s father had been a successful man in trade, and Mr. Briscoe himself had known how to take care of that which came to him. But the only child had died not long before Mr. Briscoe’s own death. It was a generally understood thing that Mrs. Briscoe would leave her money, or the chief part of it, to my husband.