“Oh, my dear, so far as that is concerned! but you know how difficult it will be. However, there is something else that will please you very much. You know old Sir Walter at the last took a great fancy to our Wat, and wanted to leave him something. Well, your cousin Alicia felt she ought to carry out her father’s wishes, and she has settled on him a fortune—ten thousand pounds.”
“Ten thousand pounds!” said the girls, in one breath.
“It makes him quite independent. It is a great thing for him at his age; I hope it will not lead him into temptation. And it is very good of your cousin Alicia. She had no need to do it unless she pleased, for it was only a fancy, a dying fancy, which Sir Walter, perhaps, had he got better, might not—We must always be grateful to her, whatever else may happen. Few people, though they might be very civil, would show kindness to that extent.” Lady Penton paused thoughtfully. Cousin Alicia had not been on the whole very civil, and she felt as if the thanks she was according were not enthusiastic enough. “It is a wonderful thing,” she added, warming herself up, “an absolute gift of ten thousand pounds. I don’t think I ever heard of anything like it. It is a splendid gift.”
“And Wat never said a word! I wonder, mother, if he knows.”
“Yes, he knows. I dare say he was overwhelmed by it. He would not know what to say. Where is he? I should like to wish him joy.”
“I know where he is. He has gone to the village to tell her,” said little Mab to herself, and she looked the other way in case Lady Penton might have read it in her eyes. But Lady Penton, in her innocence, never would have divined what those eyes meant. And presently she earned the war, so to speak, into the enemy’s country by turning next to her visitor.
“My dear,” she said, “there is a message for you, too. Mr. Russell Penton is to send for you, or perhaps come for you, to-morrow.”
“To-morrow!” cried Mab, taken by surprise. While she was thus keeping back her sheaf of imaginary arrows, here was one which caught herself as it were in the very middle of her shield. “Oh!” she cried again, “and must I go?”
Now she had been no inconsiderable embarrassment to the family at this crisis of its affairs, but the moment she uttered this little plaintive cry all their soft hearts turned to Mab with a bound of tenderness and gratitude, and great compunction for ever having found her in their way. They did not know that part of her reluctance to leave them was in consequence of the investigations which she had entered upon, and was by no means willing to break off.
“My dear,” said Lady Penton, “we have been so out of our ordinary while you have been with us, that I am sure it is very, very sweet of you to care to stay. And we should all like very much to keep you a little longer. I hope Mr. Russell Penton may come for you himself to-morrow, and then perhaps he will consent to let you stay.”