“Little Alf, who has been the kindest, tenderest, most patient laddie all these months, spare sometimes a loving thought to
“Your Aunt Helene.”
“But I wasn’t what she says at the end,” Alf said in a choking voice; “I’ve been a beast to her,—think how I used to make fun of her in my letters!”
But they who knew warm-hearted little Alf knew without telling just in what way he had been a comfort to the lonely, mistaken woman.
“Pater,” the boy said wistfully when the general conversation was loud, and the doctor so near he could hear a whisper, “I won’t be very much expense,—are you very vexed with me for chucking the money? I came back steerage, so I’ve got twenty-two pounds left out of the forty. That’ll pay for my food for a long time.”
But the doctor, who had always been rather an impetuous, improvident man, blew his nose as loudly as Herr Ollendorf was wont to do, and said—
“Hang the expense!” with great vigour. “Thank heaven, I’ve got you again, old lad,” he added; “your punishment is, you’ll stop here now, and be poor with the rest of us.”
A week later came a German letter. It was from the grandfather’s solicitors, and bore strange news. Alf was [313] ]his aunt’s heir. Everything she had she had left to him unconditionally. Not a very vast inheritance, it is true, for the poor little woman’s mania for beautiful clothes had greatly crippled a once handsome income. Still, three hundred a year would do many things, and at least keep away the terrible necessity of Alf being compelled to teach German for a living.
The letter went on to state the fact of the boy’s disappearance; inquiries had been made, and it seemed reasonable to conclude he had run away from his grandfather’s care, and sailed for Australia by the Barbarossa. “If this proved to be the case,” said the solicitors, “and if the boy had returned, or in process of time did return to his father, then his grandfather washed his hands of him for all time.”
The young reprobate leaned back when the reading of the letter reached this point, and sighed relievedly.