"Yes, and you shall visit the Haven every day. That will be beautiful, and you won't mind being a paid official, will you, as I think paid work is more satisfactory. I'll give you one hundred pounds a year, and it will be a real, real help."
"Oh, Toney! but—— Yes, I won't be proud because the money will be so useful to me. It is silly our being afraid of saying we are poor. Since I've known you, Toney, I see how foolish we are."
Toney took her hand and clasped it
"That's a token of our agreement. The Kanakas did that when I tried to make them promise to leave off a bad habit; but I think they liked clasping hands, as they so often forgot and had to begin again!" They both laughed, and Maud's eyes began to shine with new hope and pleasure. She was going to be useful.
"And there's another thing I want to ask you about. You know Jeanie always looks so miserable; well, it's because she is constantly thinking of Frank Weston. She rejected him because he wasn't a gentleman born, I used to think she was right, but now—I begin to feel it's we that were silly and foolish. How can it matter what a man is by birth so that he's really nice. You don't know what a wonderful musician he is, and what a very, very nice man. I think Jeanie broke his heart, or nearly, and I believe she is breaking hers, as she is so cross if I mention him. Oh, Toney, can you help her? You got Miss Crump married. Lewis says it was all your doing."
"Gracious stars! but I do love a real, real romance. Of course I'd marry a pig-sticker if he was real nice, but I'm not a Hamilton—I'm only just Toney Whitburn. But, Maud, let's think out a solution, and thank you very, very much for being so nice to me! I'll never be jealous of you!"
"Jealous of me!—how could you be, Toney?"
CHAPTER XIX.
A REFUGE.
The transformation of the farm seemed to take place by magic, for Toney spared neither trouble nor money. She wished to have some place where her visitors might be received with kindness and courtesy, two things which were a very uncertain quantity at Aldersfield, that is if Lady Dove was in the vicinity. Besides all this time, Toney was constantly writing to the architect about plans for "Stone House," and to Mr. Staines about the purchase of the land. It was in all these ways that the girl's real ability was soon visible; what she did not understand she grappled with till, as she expressed it, daylight came. Even Mr. Russell began to feel that his employer was not only a mere girl with whims and fancies, for that had been his first opinion of her. He was often surprised at the grasp she had of subjects not included in a young lady's education, and a faint spark of enthusiasm began to appear occasionally in his work. Certainly there was a great deal of secretarial work to do, but Toney's masterly scribbles on the letters to be answered were seldom at fault, though expressed in somewhat quaint fashion. She appeared to remember cases in an extraordinary manner without their being tabulated, for she possessed a royal memory, bred of early training and a perfectly healthy life.