Achesons’. You might let me have those few shillings; you can have them back when you want them.”
“But, Rupert, they are all I possess, all I have between me and the workhouse.”
“Bother the workhouse! Much chance a pretty girl like you has of going there. Let me have ten shillings at least. You surely do not mean to refuse your starving brother?”
“Of course I cannot refuse you,” said Annie. She took up her purse, opened it, and gave Rupert half a sovereign.
“Ta-ta,” he replied; “this will do until we meet to-morrow. You do look a bit dragged, Annie, now I come to examine you carefully; but better days will dawn.”
He shrugged his shoulders, and walked down the street. Poor as he professed himself to be, he was by no means shabbily dressed. He had a fine figure, square shoulders, and a swagger in his walk.
Annie gazed long after his retreating form.
“Why is he about the most wicked person in the world, and why do I love him so much?” she thought. “There, I have only four shillings now. How I am to get that twenty pounds Heaven only knows. Oh, I am a miserable, most miserable girl!”
[CHAPTER XXIX—30 NEWBOLT SQUARE.]
Mrs. Acheson, although a most kind-hearted woman and affectionate mother, would, if she had spoken her innermost thoughts, have confessed that Belle was not at all to her mind. Being her daughter she thought it her duty to be as good as she could possibly be to Belle, but she would infinitely have preferred a girl in the style of Lettie Chetwynd, a sociable, agreeable, pleasant girl, who would have done credit to pretty dresses, have won a desirable lover, and married comfortably. She would indeed have considered her cup of happiness complete had such a girl as Leslie Gilroy been hers; but Belle being the child allotted to her by Providence, she was wise enough to make the best of her, not to attempt to turn her into any other groove, and to endeavor to counteract her eccentricities as far as possible.