Kenelm was greatly moved.
"And they don't know what you did for them?"
"To be sure not. I don't think Will would have let him self be beholden to me. Ah! the lad has a spirit of his own, and Jessie—Mrs. Somers—would have felt pained and humbled that I should even think of such a thing. Miss Travers managed it all. They take the money as a loan which is to be paid by instalments. They have sent Miss Travers more than one instalment already, so I know they are doing well."
"A loan from Miss Travers?"
"No; Miss Travers wanted to have a share in it, but I begged her not. It made me happy to do what I did all myself; and Miss Travers felt for me and did not press. They perhaps think it is Squire Travers (though he is not a man who would like to say it, for fear it should bring applicants on him), or some other gentleman who takes an interest in them."
"I always said you were a grand fellow, Tom. But you are grander still than I thought you."
"If there be any good in me, I owe it to you, sir. Think what a drunken, violent brute I was when I first met you. Those walks with you, and I may say that other gentleman's talk, and then that long kind letter I had from you, not signed in your name, and written from abroad,—all these changed me, as the child is changed at nurse."
"You have evidently read a good deal since we parted."
"Yes; I belong to our young men's library and institute; and when of an evening I get hold of a book, especially a pleasant story-book, I don't care for other company."
"Have you never seen any other girl you could care for, and wish to marry?"