Mr. Wycherly's Wards

by L. Allen Harker

Mr. Wycherly rose and held out his hand:

"I am greatly obliged to you," he said. "You have been very frank and helpful. It will give me great pleasure if you will come and see us—and as a personal favour, I would ask you not to walk in the streets with her again, for her sake."

"I should like awfully to come, sir. It's very kind of you. It's my last term, so you won't be troubled with me for long."

Gantry Bill rose slowly and majestically from his place in the window, dropped to the floor, and came and sniffed at Mr. Wycherly. George Gordon pulled himself together with a mighty effort, and said somewhat huskily: "You know, sir, I think she ought to have a blind or something. Anyone can see her."

Mr. Wycherly stooped to pat Gantry Bill.

"I am still very much in your debt," he said.

* * * * *

That summer Montagu went in the vacation with a reading party to Brittany. Mr. Wycherly took Edmund and Jane-Anne to Burnhead, in Midlothian, where he had spent so many years, and Mrs. Dew went to stay with Lord Dursley's housekeeper.

The minister lived in the house that had belonged to Miss Esperance; Mr. Wycherly and the two young people lodged with her old servant, Robina. While they were there Curly came to see the minister, who was his father, and during the week he spent in Burnhead, he made Jane-Anne, through Mr. Wycherly, the offer of a definite engagement in a company he was going on tour with after Christmas. She would, of course, at first only walk on. After that she would be entrusted with small parts and then—her chance might come. The company was good in more senses than one. The actresses were ladies, two of them married to members of the company, and Jane-Anne would be well looked after.

The project flung Mr. Wycherly into a perfect tempest of worry. Had Curly so much as hinted the possibility of such a thing to Jane-Anne herself, he would have felt that he had just cause for grievance. But he knew that Curly had done nothing of the kind, and that it lay with him, and with him only, to suppress or put before her this, to him, detestable plan.