"Not any?" said Mr. Hardcastle, looking blank, "and yet you propose to take a house with a rental of two hundred and eighty pounds a year."
"We mean to pay the rent out of the profit we get from the boarders," I replied.
Mr. Hardcastle did not make use of an ugly word, but he raised his brows, looked fixedly at me for a moment, and then shook his head.
"I am sorry," he said, rising; "I would do a great deal to oblige you, for you are both most charming ladies, but I cannot let my house without references. If you, for instance, Mrs. Wickham, could get any one to guarantee the rent, I should be delighted to let you the house and put it in order, but not otherwise."
He added a few more words, and then he and the agent, both of them looking very gloomy, went away.
"I shall hear from you doubtless on the subject of references," said Mr. Hardcastle as he bowed himself out, "and I will keep the offer open until Saturday."
This was Wednesday, we had three days to spare.
"Now, Westenra," said my mother, "the thing has come to a stop of itself. Providence has interfered, and I must honestly say I am glad. From the first the scheme was mad, and as that nice, jovial looking Mr. Hardcastle will not let us the house without our having capital, and as we have no capital, there surely is an end to the matter. I have not the slightest doubt, West, that all the other landlords in Bloomsbury will be equally particular, therefore we must fall back upon our little cottage in——"
"No, mother," I interrupted, "no; I own that at the present moment I feel at my wits' end, but I have not yet come to the cottage in the country."
I think there were tears in my eyes, for mother opened her arms wide.