"You see there is no one else," said Meg apologetically. "Uncle Russelthorpe, I mean to go away. I can't stay here any longer. Father promised me that he would write soon, and perhaps send for me. He has been gone nearly two months, and I have not heard from him. Perhaps,"—with her ungovernable desire to shift the blame from his shoulders—"perhaps, he is ill, or he may have sent a message that has not been given to me. Anyhow, I can't—oh I can't—wait much longer."
"Tut, tut!" interrupted Mr. Russelthorpe. "You are young and impatient. When you are my age, you will not say 'can' and 'can't' so easily. There are few things we can't endure, hardly any I should say; and our skins become toughened with age, fortunately, and our hearts colder, also most fortunately."
Meg shivered involuntarily.
"But I haven't begun to be old yet!" she cried. "That doesn't help me!"
The old man looked at her uneasily; he had something of the feeling that one of the audience of a play might have, if suddenly appealed to by an actor: he hated being dragged out of his safe place as spectator, and being asked for practical advice.
"I think the sort of life we lead is all wrong from beginning to end," said this inconvenient niece; and the corners of Mr. Russelthorpe's lips twitched a little, he was genuinely sorry for her unhappiness, but her revolutionary sentiments amused him.
"Father really thinks so too. I have never forgotten something he said when I was a child, about Dives preaching contentment to the starving across an over-loaded table."
Uncle Russelthorpe took snuff and shook his head.
"My dear young lady, don't you begin to talk cheap Chartist cant," he said. "One Whig in the family is enough, and Charles' harangues don't sound so well at second-hand; it is his voice and manner that makes any nonsense he chooses to spout go down; besides, he would be considerably deranged, I fancy, if you were to take upon yourself to put all his theories into practice; that's a very pernicious habit that you've contracted—not inherited—I doubt its being so pleasing to him as you imagine."
"But that's worse than anything, and I won't believe you!" cried Meg, with a passion that actually startled him. "Uncle, it makes me feel miserable when you say that; as if father were not ever in earnest! Aunt Russelthorpe tells me that too! She says he never really meant me to live with him, and that I'd taken everything too seriously. It isn't true. I want to go to him, and to hear him say it isn't true. Will you help me? I believe Aunt Russelthorpe knows where he is. Will you make her tell you? Will you give me the money, and send some one with me if I mustn't travel alone? I won't run away. It isn't wrong to want to go to my own father," cried poor Meg, with a rather pathetic pride. "I'll do it openly. My aunt will be angry, but he will understand. I am his child, and he always says I am to come to him in any difficulty. I know that he will be glad!"