As for Brown, when he first heard the news, he went home to the bosom of his family with bitterness in his heart. “I can’t call to mind a single day I ever missed, except that fever, and the day Billy was born,” he said to Mrs. Brown, despondingly; “and here’s this young fellow that’s been six months in the office—”
“It’s a shame,” said that injured woman; “it’s a black burning shame. A bit of a lad picked up in the streets that don’t know what money is; and you a married man with six—not to say the faithful servant you have been. I wonder for my part how Mr. Brownlow dares to look you in the face.”
“He don’t mind much about that. What he thinks is, that the money’s his own,” said poor Brown, with a sigh.
“But it ain’t his own,” said the higher spirited wife. “I would just like to know who works hardest for it, him or you. If I saw him every day as you do, I would soon give him a piece of my mind.”
“And lose my place altogether,” said the husband. But, notwithstanding, though he did not give Mr. Brownlow a piece of his mind, Brown did not hesitate to express his feelings a little in the tone of his voice, and the disapproval in his eye.
All this, however, was as nothing to the judgment which Mr. Brownlow brought upon himself on the following Sunday. The fact that his father had doubled any clerk’s salary was a matter of great indifference to Jack. He smiled in an uncomfortable sort of way when he heard it was young Powys on whom this benefit had fallen; but otherwise it did not affect him. On Sunday, however, as it happened, something occurred that brought Mr. Brownlow’s favoritism—his extraordinary forgetfulness of his position and of what was due to his children—home in the most striking way to his son. It was a thing that required all Mr. Brownlow’s courage; and it can not be said that he was quite comfortable about it. He had done what never had been done before to any clerk since the days of Brownlows began. He had invited young Powys to dinner. He had even done more than that—he had invited him to come early, to ramble about the park, as if he had been an intimate. It was not unpleasant to him to give the invitation, but there is no doubt that the thought of how he was to communicate the fact to his children, and prepare them for their visitor, did give him a little trouble. Of course it was his own house. He was free to ask any one he liked to it. The choice lay entirely with himself; but yet—He said nothing about it until the very day for which his invitation had been given—not that he had forgotten the fact, but somehow a certain constraint came over him whenever he so much as approached the subject. It was only Thursday when he asked young Powys to come, and he had it on his mind all that evening, all Friday and Saturday, and did not venture to make a clean breast of it. Even when Jack was out of the way, it seemed to the father impossible to look into Sara’s face, and tell her of the coming guest. Sunday was very bright—a midsummer day in all its green and flowery glory. Jack had come to the age when a young man is often a little uncertain about his religious duties. He did not care to go and hear Mr. Hardcastle preach. So he said; though the Rector, good man, was very merciful, and inflicted only fifteen minutes of sermon; and then he was very unhappy, and restless, and uneasy about his own concerns; and he was misanthropical for the moment, and disliked the sight and presence of his fellow-creatures. So Jack did not go to church. And Sara and her father did, walking across the beautiful summer park, under the shady trees, through the paths all flecked with sunshine. Sara’s white figure gave a centre to the landscape. She was not angelic, notwithstanding her white robes, but she was royal in her way—a young princess moving through a realm that belonged to her, used to homage, used to admiration, used to know herself the first. Though she was as sweet and as gracious as the morning, all this was written in her face; for she was still very young, and had not reached the maturer dignity of unconsciousness. Mr. Brownlow, as he went with her, was but the first subject in her kingdom. Nobody admired her as he did. Nobody set her up above every competitor with the perfect faith of her father; and to see her clinging to his arm, lifting up her fresh face to him, displaying all her philosophies and caprices for his benefit, was a pretty sight. But yet, all through that long walk to Dewsbury and back, he never ventured to disclose his secret to her. All the time it lay on his heart, but he could not bring himself to say it. It was only when they were all leaving the table, after luncheon, that Mr. Brownlow unburdened himself. “By the way,” he said suddenly, as he rose from his chair, “there is some one coming out to dinner from Masterton. Oh, not any body that makes much difference—a young fellow—”
“Some young fellows make a great deal of difference,” said Sara. “Who is it, papa?”
“Well—at present he is—only one of my clerks,” said Mr. Brownlow, with an uneasy and, to tell the truth, rather humble and deprecating smile—“one you have seen before—he was out here that day I was ill.”
“Oh, Mr. Powys,” said Sara; and in a moment, before another word was spoken, her sublime indifference changed into the brightest gleam of malice, of mischief, of curiosity, that ever shone out of two blue eyes. “I remember him perfectly well—all about him,” she said, with a touch of emphasis that was not lost on her father. “Is there any body else, papa?”
“Powys!” said Jack, turning back in amaze. He had been going out not thinking of any thing; but this intimation, coming just after the news of the office about Powys’s increase of salary, roused his curiosity, and called him back to hear.