Now all these things were at an end. The servants must go; the large house—which had been added to from time to time by the Rector until it had lost all similitude to the ordinary small and cozy Rectory—the great house must remain either partly shut up or only half cleaned. There must be no more dinner-parties, and no nice carriage for Aunt Marjorie to return calls in. The vineries and conservatories must remain unheated during the winter; the gardeners must depart. Weeds must grow instead of flowers.
Alack, and alas! Aunt Marjorie felt like a shipwrecked mariner, as she sat now in the lovely drawing room and looked out over the summer scene.
With her mind's eye she was gazing at something totally different—she was seeing the beautiful place as it would look in six months' time; she saw with disgust the rank and obnoxious weeds, the empty grate, the dust-covered ornaments.
"It is worse for us than it would be for ordinary people," she said half aloud. "If we were just ordinary people, we could leave here and go into a tiny cottage where our surroundings would be in keeping with our means; but of course the Rector must live in the Rectory—at least I suppose so. Dear, dear! how sudden this visitation has been—truly may it be said that 'all flesh is grass.'"
Aunt Marjorie had a way of quoting sentences which did not at all apply to the occasion; these quotations always pleased her, however, and a slow smile now played round her lips.
The drawing-room door was opened noisily, and a fat little figure rushed across the room and sprang into her arms.
"Is that you, Babs?" she said. She cuddled the child in a close embrace, and kissed her smooth, cool cheek many times.
"Yes, of course it's me," said Babs, in her matter-of-fact voice. "Your eyes are quite red, Auntie. Have you been crying?"
"We have had dreadful trouble, my darling—poor Auntie feels very miserable—it is about father. Your dear father has lost all his money, my child."
"Miss Mills told me that half an hour ago," said Babs; "that's why I wanted to see you, Auntie. I has got half a sovereign in the Savings Bank. I'll give it to father if he wants it."