“No doubt he might do so, young man, if he knew you were in need of ’em, but your father gave him to understand that his family was rich.”
“Rich!” exclaimed Lewis, with a smile, in which there was a touch of contempt. “Well, yes, we were rich enough once, but when my father was away these wretched mines became—”
“Lewie!” exclaimed his mother, hastily, “what nonsense you do talk! Really, one would think from your account that we were paupers.”
“Well, mother, so we are—paupers to this extent at least, that we can’t afford to take a run to Switzerland, though ordered to do so for your health, because we lack funds.”
Lewis said this half petulantly, for he had been a “spoilt child,” and might probably have been by that time a ruined young man, but for the mercy of his Creator, who had blessed him with an amiable disposition. He was one of those youths, in short, of whom people say that they can’t be spoiled, though fond and foolish parents do their best to spoil them.
“You mis-state the case, naughty boy,” said Mrs Stoutley, annoyed at being thus forced to touch on her private affairs before a stranger. “No doubt our ready cash is what our man-of-business calls ‘locked up,’ but that, you know, is only a matter of temporary inconvenience, and cannot last long.”
As Mrs Stoutley paused and hesitated, their visitor placed on the table a canvas bag, which, up to this point he had rested on one knee.
“This bag,” he said, “of nuggets, is a gift from Willum. He desired me to deliver it to you, Miss Gray, as a small acknowledgment of your kindness in writin’ so often to him. He’d have bought you a silk gown, or a noo bonnet, so he said, but wasn’t sure as to your taste in such matters, and thought you’d accept the nuggets and buy it for yourself. Leastwise, that’s somethin’ like the speech Willum tried to tell me to deliver, but he warn’t good at speech-makin’ no more than I at remembrin’, and hoped you’d take the will for the deed.”
With a flush of surprise and pleasure, Emma Gray accepted both the will and the deed, with many expressions of gratitude, and said, that as she did not require either a silk dress or a bonnet just then, she would invest her little fortune; she would lend it at high interest, to a lady under temporary inconvenience, who was ordered by her doctor to Switzerland for the benefit of her health. To this Mrs Stoutley protested very earnestly that the lady in question would not accept the loan on any consideration; that it must not be diverted from its destined use, but be honestly expended on silk-dresses and new bonnets. To which Emma replied, that the destiny of the gift, with interest (she was very particular on that head), should be fulfilled in good time, but that meanwhile it must be lent out.
In the midst of a cross-fire of this kind the bag was opened, and its contents poured on the table, to the immense admiration of all the company, none of whom had, until that day, beheld gold in its native condition.