Suddenly, a quick, firm footstep sounded on the little garden path, and a boy’s round face smiled in at the diamond-paned window like a ray of bright sunshine. Mrs Gray almost ran to the door. “Bernard, you must be drenched!” she cried.
“No, Mother, not a bit of it,” he laughed, taking off his streaming mackintosh.
“It is such a dreadful day,” she said, but her face had brightened astonishingly at the sight of her brave boy.
“Yes, but it has put a scheme—a grand scheme in my head! Wait until I get my wet togs off and I’ll tell you.”
“An experiment?—already! oh, Bernard!” Mrs Gray laughed with actual joy: her faith in her only son was so unquestioning.
As Bernard came downstairs, the faithful old servant was carrying in a substantial tea for her young master. “Hullo, Dolly,” he cried; “I haven’t stayed up the remainder of the term, you see.”
“Ah, Mr Bernard, it’s well you take it so lightly—but it’s black ruin this time and no mistake. My poor mistress has been fretting night and day over it. Whatever is she to do?”
“Trust herself to me,” said Bernard valiantly.
Dolly laughed. “Why, you ain’t sixteen, Mr Bernard, and not done with your schooling. But, as parson said, so strange-like, on Sunday, for his text—‘the only son of his mother and she was a widow’—you’re all she has left.”
When Mrs Gray and her son were alone she told Bernard the whole history of their misfortunes. An unfortunate speculation on the part of their trustee had left them almost penniless. “There is nothing left to us,” she said, “but this little cottage and seventeen pounds in the cash-box. But, Bernard,” she added, “I grieve over nothing but your school. You had such a brilliant future, and so many friends.”