'Poor Aunt Clotilda!' thought the boy. 'It is really very sad for her. Papa has always told us what a good sister she was to him, and of course if they had come home and gone to live there she would always have stayed with us. I wonder what she will do? I wish I were old enough to earn money, somehow, so that we three, aunt and Kathie and I, could live together till papa and mamma come home. It seems a shame for her to have to work, and yet I suppose she'll have to do something like being a governess or a companion; perhaps she's too old to be a governess. She's much older than papa.'
The thought of his aunt seemed to bring out all the chivalry in his nature.
'When I'm a man,' he went on thinking to himself, 'if Kathleen and little Vida are not married, and poor, I won't marry till I've got enough for them to be comfortable. Of course it was different for papa, for he was so sure of Mrs. Wynne's money. It's very kind of Aunt Clotilda to want me too to go. I should like to see the place, though it will be rather horrid too to know it should have been ours. I do hope Kathie will like the idea of going.'
All fears on this score were soon put an end to. The very next morning brought him back his aunt's long letter enclosed in a rather scrawly note from Kathleen, condescendingly expressing her approval of the scheme, the reason of which was, to tell the truth, principally contained in the postscript.
'We'll have a good hunt for the will ourselves. I'm sure Aunt Clotilda is rather a goose. I don't believe she's half hunted for it. Just think, Neville, if we found it!'
And Neville's face flushed with a momentary enthusiasm as he pictured to himself the delight of such a possibility. But the glow quickly faded again.
'No, there's no use thinking of it,' he said to himself; 'better not. Kathie mustn't get it into her head, though I'm glad in one way to see that she has thought about it seriously. But I'm quite sure Aunt Clotilda has done everything that could be done. Kathie has no business to say she's a goose. Now I can write to her and say we should like very much to go to her. I hope it won't bother her much.'
His letter was sent that very afternoon. But it was not till nearly noon on the following day that it reached its destination. In what Miss Clotilda Powys herself and many of her neighbours, not to speak of old Martha, were already beginning to call 'the old days,' a groom used regularly to be sent from Mrs. Wynne's to the two miles distant post-office, where the letters arrived by mail-cart early in the morning. Now-a-days the White House had to take its turn with the rest of the world in the out-of-the way village, and to wait the good pleasure of old John Parry, who stumped along at his own sweet will, the canvas bag slung across his shoulders, seeing no reason why he should hurry. Nay, more, if there happened to be any piece of work at his own cottage that he was anxious to get finished betimes, the letters might wait—half an hour or so couldn't make such a mighty difference, and he was quite secure that no one in the village would ever notice it or complain if they did. Miss Clotilda Powys was perhaps the only person the least likely to mind whether her share of the post-bag's contents reached her at ten o'clock or twelve. And lately, since the excitement that immediately followed Mrs. Wynne's death had subsided, since there were no more lawyer's letters of advice or inquiry to look for—for everybody by this time had come to believe that either the will would never be found or did not exist—Miss Clotilda cared little more about post-time than anybody else. She had no heart left to feel interest in the outside world, and she was a woman whose chief interests would always be those of her own belongings. For she had lived in a small sphere all her life—her one great affection had been for her younger brother, David Powys, the father of Neville and Kathleen; like a stream, dammed on all sides but one, this affection had deepened and strengthened till it had become the one idea of her life. It is easy, therefore, to understand that Captain Powys was right when he said that his sister was perhaps the most to be pitied of all concerned.