"I cannot even give you half-a-crown," and Teddy's quick ears heard his mother's voice falter as she said the words.
"Then," said Mrs. Taylor coldly, "I suppose it is no good to ask you to give your usual yearly donation towards the summer treat for the Sunday-school children?"
"It pains me to refuse you, but I must."
An uncomfortable silence followed. Mrs. Taylor rose to go, but Mrs. Braham motioned her to resume her seat.
"This must seem so strange to you," she said, "that I feel I must explain. My husband has had a sudden and very serious loss. He is now a comparatively poor man, and it would not be right for me to give, as I have hitherto been pleased and thankful to do."
Teddy could not bear to see tears in his mother's eyes. He went and stood by her side while Mrs. Taylor expressed her sympathy, and also her sorrow at having wounded Mrs. Braham's feelings. But Mrs. Braham said, with a smile, that no apology was needed; and then, having seen her visitor to the hall-door, she returned to the drawing-room, and took Teddie on her knee. He was eleven years old, but that was still his favorite seat. Very gently she put back the hair from his forehead and kissed him, and then suddenly she bent her head and burst into a fit of weeping. Wise Teddie only pressed his arms more closely round her neck, and said nothing till the tears began to stop. Then he whispered,—
"Won't you tell me all about it, mother?"
"Dear, this is the first real trouble you have known," she answered, "and I am so sorry that your young, happy life should be clouded. If we could keep the knowledge from you we would, but that is impossible."
Then she told him how his father had become surety for a friend, and explained that this meant a promise to pay a certain sum of money in place of the friend, if that friend should find himself unable to pay it. Mr. Braham had made a promise to pay a large amount on this condition, and it had fallen on him to fulfil his word.
"Is father quite poor now?" Teddie asked; "as poor as the people who live in the cottages in the lane?"