Florence grew very pale. Mrs. Margaret Blunden—who knew and condemned her brother’s follies—had exacted from her a promise never to be tempted to touch this bequest; and her niece had freely given it, for it was their little all. She knew but too well that there was nothing else left to them, and she held it sacred, for it was her steadfast purpose when Mr. Heriton saw the hopelessness of his speculations to devote it to the purchase of an annuity for him. The more madly he launched into fresh schemes the more firmly Florence clung to this sum of money for his sake. With this, and what she could earn, her father’s old age could at least be secured from want.
She had long dreaded such a request, and now summoned up all her fortitude to refuse it.
“Dearest papa, if I had reserved Uncle Blunden’s legacy for my own uses I would willingly give it to you, but I have a special purpose for it. Don’t ask me to part with it, please, for I dare not.”
“Pooh! Florence—this is so childish! I do but ask it as a loan; a few weeks or months at the farthest, and you shall have it again, doubled.”
Florence was very pale, but her resolution was not to be shaken.
“I cannot give it you, papa—I cannot, indeed! We have nothing else left, and if this were lost, too, what would become of us?”
Mr. Heriton began to grow angry at her firmness.
“Child, it will not be lost, I tell you. Think what you are doing by your obstinacy; you are depriving me of what may be my last chance of recovering myself. With those few hundreds in my possession, I see my way to fortune.”
“But, alas, dear papa, you have thought the same thing so often.”
Mr. Heriton started up and pushed her violently from him.