Gilbert quickly reached out for it.
This was the material portion of the letter, which Gilbert read with hurried interest:—
“Circumstances will not permit my ward remaining with you another year. I may say plainly that, should he do so, I should be compelled to defray the expense out of my own pocket, and consideration for my own family will not justify me in doing that. I have never, as you know, promised positively that he should go to college. It was barely possible that funds would be forthcoming which would admit of such a course; but it is now quite certain that there is no chance of it.
“He has already, as I should judge from your letters, considerably more than an average education,—more, indeed, than I had when I began my career,—and he ought to be satisfied with that. He has led an easy life hitherto. Now it is time that he did something for himself. Upon receipt of this letter, will you, as soon as may be, send him to me in New York? I will then confer with him as to his future plans.”
This letter was signed Richard Briggs.
Gilbert read it with a mixture of feelings. He was making an unpleasant discovery. Though he knew little about his own affairs, he had always cherished the idea that he had considerable property, and that his path in life would be smoothed as only money can smooth it. He was not especially fond of money, nor did he ever presume on its supposed possession, but it was certainly comfortable to think that he was not poor.
Now it appeared that he had been all his life under a mistake. He was not a favored child of fortune after all, but a poor boy,—as poor, very likely, as his friend John Munford, from whom he had just parted. No wonder he looked with some bewilderment in the doctor’s face when he had completed reading the letter.
The doctor, though a stern man, felt for the boy’s disappointment. He, too, had been under the impression that Gilbert was at least comfortably provided for.
“Well, Greyson,” he said, “I suppose this letter surprises you.”
“Yes, sir, it does,” answered Gilbert, slowly. “I always supposed that I had money to depend upon.”