“But I should not like,” said Harry. “I want you to go when the place is complete and worthy of you. If you saw it now, you would think it a dingy, melancholy desert; but just wait for a month or so! There is a good deal of wood to be cut down, and they tell me the estate may be much improved; and to have a thousand pounds to begin with, you know, is great good fortune. There is a new church building close by—I think of giving them a hundred pounds, Martha.”
“A hundred pounds!” exclaimed Agnes and Rose.
The eyes of both were wet. It was so great a gladness to be able to give such a gift, and then to propose it was so good of Harry! They were both overpowered with his liberality.
“A Syrian ready to perish was my father,” said Martha, slowly. “Yes, it is very fit you should bring the handful of first-fruits; but bring it justly, Harry. Spare it. Do not give it to the church and spend it too.”
“Martha is thinking of our old fifteen pounds a quarter,” said Harry, gaily. “Martha forgets that you don’t need to put off an account to pay your seat-rent now, Agnes. Why, only think of a thousand pounds—what a sum it is! It seems to me as if we could never spend it. Look here, Lettie.”
And Harry triumphantly exhibited a hundred-pound note. No one present had ever seen such a one before; and simple Harry, with a touch of most innocent pride, had preferred this one piece of paper to the more useful smaller notes, simply to let them see it, and to dazzle their eyes with a whole hundred pounds of their own.
“Eh, Harry!” exclaimed Violet, with reverential eyes fixed on Harry’s new pocket-book, “is’t a’ there?”
Harry laughed, and closed the book; but they all looked at it a little curiously, and even Agnes felt a momentary doubt as to whether a thousand—ay, or even a hundred—pounds were very safe in Harry’s keeping.
“No, it’s not all here,” answered the heir; “it’s all in the bank but this. Now, Agnes, am I not to have any tea? And we must consult about it all. The improvements will cost some two hundred pounds; then we’ll say a hundred and fifty to furnish the drawing-room—that’s very moderate. Then—there are already some things in the dining-room—say a hundred for that, and another hundred for the rest of the house. How much is that, Lettie?”
Lettie was counting it up on her fingers.