With a smile on her lips, and the old look of patience in her steady eyes, she turned her back to the window and prepared to listen to what the squire had to say.
"The fact is, Frances—" he began. "Sit down, my dear, sit down; I hate to have people standing, it fidgets me so. Oh! you want to be out with that young man; well, Fluff will amuse him—dear little thing, Fluff—most entertaining. Has a way of soothing a man's nerves, which few women possess. You, my dear, have often a most irritating way with you; not that I complain—we all have our faults. You inherit this intense overwrought sort of manner from your mother, Frances."
Frances, who was standing absolutely quiet and still again, smiled slightly.
"You had something to talk to me about," she said, in her gentlest of voice.
"To be sure I had. I can tell you I have my worries—wonder I'm alive—and since your mother died never a bit of sympathy do I get from mortal. There, read that letter from Spens, and see what you make of it. Impudent? uncalled for? I should think so; but I really do wonder what these lawyers are coming to. Soon there'll be no distinctions between man and man anywhere, when a beggarly country lawyer dares to write to a gentleman like myself in that strain. But read the letter, Frances; you'll have to see Spens this afternoon. I'm not equal to it."
"Let me see what Mr. Spens says," answered Frances.
She took the lawyer's letter from the squire's shaking old fingers, and opened it. Then her face became very pale, and as her eyes glanced rapidly over the contents, she could not help uttering a stifled exclamation.
"Yes, no wonder you're in a rage," said the squire. "The impudence of that letter beats everything."
"But what does Mr. Spens mean?" said Frances. "He says here—unless you can pay the six thousand pounds owing within three months, his client has given him instructions to sell the Firs. What does he mean, father? I never knew that we owed a penny. Oh, this is awful!"
"And how do you suppose we have lived?" said the squire, who was feeling all that undue sense of irritation which guilty people know so well. "How have we had our bread and butter? How has the house been kept up? How have the wages been met? I suppose you thought that that garden of yours—those vegetables and fruit—have kept everything going? That's all a woman knows. Besides, I've been unlucky—two speculations have failed—every penny I put in lost in them. Now, what's the matter, Frances? You have a very unpleasant manner of staring."