“Quite ready. What warm work this is! Really I do not believe there is such a bit of pavement in all Deerbrook as this of ours.”
“Come—come in to breakfast. You have admired your work quite enough for this morning.”
The three who sat down to breakfast were as reasonable and philosophical as most people; but even they were taken by surprise with the sweetness of comforts provided by their own immediate toil. There was something in the novelty, perhaps; but Hope threw on the fire with remarkable energy the coals he had himself brought in from the coal-house, and ate with great relish the toast toasted by his wife’s own hands. Margaret, too, looked round the room more than once, with a new sort of pride in there being not a particle of dust on table, chair, or book. It was scarcely possible to persuade Edward that there was nothing more for him to do about the house till the next morning; that the errand-boy would come in an hour, and clean the shoes; and that the only assistance the master of the house could render, would be to take charge of the baby for a quarter of an hour, while Hester helped her sister to make the beds.
After breakfast, when Hester was dressing her infant, and Margaret washing up the tea-cups and saucers, the postman’s knock was heard. Margaret went to the door, and paid for the letter from the “emergency purse,” as they called the little sum of money they had put aside for unforeseen expenses. The letter was for Edward, and so brief that it must be on business.
It was on business. It was from the lawyer of Mr Hope’s aged grandfather; and it told that the old gentleman had at last sunk rather suddenly under his many infirmities. Mr Hope was invited to go—not to the funeral, for it must be over before he could arrive, but to see the will, in which he had a large beneficial interest, the property being divided between himself and his brother, subject to legacies of one hundred pounds to each of his sisters, and a few smaller bequests to the servants.
“This is as you always feared,” said Hester to her husband, observing the expression of concern in his face, on reading the letter.
“Indeed, I always feared it would be so,” he replied. “I did what I could to prevent this act of posthumous injustice; and I am grieved that I failed; for nothing can repair it. My sisters will have their money—the same in amount, but how different in value! They will receive it as a gift from their brothers, instead of as their due from their grandfather. I am very sorry his last act was of this character.”
“Will you go? Must you go?”
“No, I shall not go—at least, not at present. The funeral would be over, you see, before I could get there; and I doubt not the rest of the business may be managed quietly and easily by letter. I have no inclination to travel just now, and no money to do it with, and strong reasons of another kind for staying at home. No, I shall not go.”
“I am very glad. Now, the first duty is to write to Emily and Anne, I suppose: and to Frank?”