“You’re in the right, Sir,” he said, so soon as he had heard the young man out—“perfectly. What do you wish me to do? I’ll write to Miss Perfect if you wish it.”
“Very kind of you, Sir; but I’d rather not, on that subject, at least till I’m quite out of the way. I should not wish her to suppose that I could seek to return to my old position of obligation. I must never cost her a farthing more.”
So William explained his feelings fully and very candidly, and Doctor Sprague listened, and looked pleased though grave; and, said he—
“You haven’t been writing for any of the magazines, or that sort of thing?”
No, he had no resource of that kind. He had a good deal of loose manuscript, he confessed with a blush, but he had no introduction.
“Well, no,” said Doctor Sprague, “you’d probably have a long wait, too long for your purpose. You have, you know, a trifle of your own, about twenty-three pounds a year, isn’t it?” and he looked in the direction of his desk, where the memorandum was; “something thereabout, that I received for you. There’s a money order for eleven pounds and something in my desk since yesterday.”
“Don’t you think, Sir, that I should apply that little annuity to pay back all I can to my aunt, who has been so good to me?”
“Tut-tut, your aunt would not accept a guinea, and would mistake your motive; don’t talk of any such thing. Her past affection is a matter of kindly recollection. You could not reduce it to money—no, no; but on the whole I think you have resolved wisely. You must undertake, for a little, something in the way of tuition; I don’t mean here. You’re hardly well enough up in the business for that; but we’ll find out something here,” and he tapped the Times, which lay open on the table beside him, “I dare say, to suit you—not a school, that would not do either—a tutor in a country house. You need not stay away more than six months, and you’ll have something to go on with then; and in the meantime you can send your manuscripts round, and try if you can’t get into some of the periodicals.”
“It is very odd, Sir, but some months since I spoke of such a plan when I was at Gilroyd, and my aunt was positively horrified; she is full of fancies, you know, and she told me that none of my family had ever done anything of the kind.”
“I don’t know about that; but I’ve done it, I can tell you, and better men than I,” said the doctor.