The present proved to be a Post-office order for twenty pounds.
"Oh, Clarice!" Guy exclaimed. "I owe this to you. I have been longing for it; and yet now that it has come, I don't know how to leave you all."
Clarice stroked his cheek and his curly dark hair; she dared not trust her voice to answer him.
Aymer said, "How kind of Villiers! It's a great thing for us all, Guy. I wish you joy, dear old fellow."
Helen stooped and kissed the top of his head, his face not being visible just then.
They had all forgotten their father's presence, until he said,—
"You none of you have the least idea to what a life of temptation and poverty Guy will go—if he goes."
"Poverty, sir!" exclaimed Aymer, startled out of his habit of never addressing his father. "A hundred and fifty pounds a year! Why, it is more than we all have to live on here."
"But how do we live? And how do we dress? And there is the garden and farm, and—and—"
He paused, and looked puzzled. The truth was, that he knew his children so little that he did not know how to speak to them.