“You shall have my receipt,” said Sir Roland Lorraine, with his eyes beginning to glisten. “Meanwhile place all the money in the bag, and tie it up securely.”
The Grower fetched a quiet little sigh, and allowed the corners of his mouth to drop, as he did what he was told to do. It had cost him many a hard fight with Mabel, and many a sulky puff of pipe, to be sent on such an errand. Money is money; and a man who makes it with so much anxiety, chance of season, and cheating from the middlemen, as a fruit-grower has to struggle through,—such a man wants to know the reason why he should let it go all of a heap. However, Martin Lovejoy was one of the “noblest works of God,” an honest man—though an honest woman is even yet more noble, if value goes by rarity—and he knew that the money was his daughter’s own, to do what she pleased with, in a twelvemonth’s time, when she would be a spinster of majority.
“I have written my receipt,” said Sir Roland, breaking in on Master Lovejoy’s sad retrospect at the bag of money. “Read it, and tell me if I have been too cold.”
It is a thing quite unaccountable, haply (and yet there must be some cause for it), that some men who allow no tone of voice, no pressure of hand, to betray emotion, yet cannot take pen without doing it, and letting the fount of heart break open from the sealed reserve of eye. No other explanation can be offered for this note of hand from Sir Roland Lorraine. The Grower put on his specs.; and then he took them off, and wiped them; and then, as the shadow of the hill came over, he found it hard to read anything. The truth was that he had read every word, but had no idea of being overcome. And the note, so hard to read, was as follows:—
“Mabel,
“I have done you much injustice. And I hope that I may live long enough to show what now I think of you. Your perfect faith and love are more than any one can have deserved of you, and least of all my son, who has fallen into all his sad distress by wandering away from you. Your money, of course, I cannot accept; but your goodwill I value more than I have power to tell you. If you would come and see Hilary, I think it would do him more good than a hundred doctors. Sometimes he seems pretty well; and again he is fit for little or nothing. I know that he longs to see you, Mabel; and having so wronged you, I ask you humbly to come and let us do you justice.
“Roland Lorraine.”
CHAPTER LXII.
A FAMILY ARRANGEMENT.
It did not occur to Sir Roland Lorraine (as he shook Martin Lovejoy’s hand, and showed him forth on his way to meet the Reigate coach at Pyecombe) that Mabel’s rich legacy might be supposed to have changed his own views concerning her. Whether her portion was to be twenty thousand pounds or twenty pence, made very little difference to him; but what made all the difference was the greatness of her faith and love.