We turn now to a very different scene—to a West End drawing-room, in which is to be found every appliance, in the way of comfort and luxurious ease, that ingenuity can devise or labour produce. An exceedingly dignified, large, self-possessed yet respectful footman, with magnificent calves in white stockings, has placed a silver tray, with three tiny cups and a tiny teapot thereon, near to the hand of a beautiful middle-aged lady—the mistress of the mansion. She is reading a letter with evident interest. A girl of seventeen, whose style of beauty tells of the closest relationship, sits beside her, eagerly awaiting the news which is evidently contained in the letter.
“Oh, I am so glad, Rosa! they have found traces of her at last.”
“Of who, mother—old nurse?” asked Rosa.
“Yes, your father’s old nurse; indeed I may say mine also, for when I was a little girl I used to pay long visits to your grandfather’s house. And it seems that she is in great poverty—almost destitute. Dear, dear old nurse! you won’t be long in poverty if I can help it!”
As she spoke, a handsome man of middle age and erect carriage entered the room. There was an expression of care and anxiety on his countenance, which, however, partly disappeared when the lady turned towards him with a triumphant look and held up the letter.
“Didn’t I tell you, Jack, that your lawyer would find our old nurse if any one could? He writes me that she has been heard of, living in some very poor district on the south side of the Thames, and hopes to be able to send me her exact address very soon. I felt quite sure that Mr Lockhart would find her, he is such an obliging and amiable man, as well as clever. I declare that I can’t bear to look at all the useless luxury in which we live when I think of the good and true creatures like old nurse who are perishing in absolute destitution.”
“But being disgusted with our luxury and giving it all up would not mend matters, little wife,” returned Jack with a faint smile. “Rich people are not called upon to give up their riches, but to use them—to spend well within their means, so as to have plenty to spare in the way of helping those who are willing to help themselves, and sustaining those who cannot help themselves. The law of supply and demand has many phases, and the profits resulting therefrom are overruled by a Higher Power than the laws of Political Economy. There are righteous rich as well as poor; there are wicked poor as well as rich. What you and I have got to do in this perplexing world is to cut our particular coat according to our cloth.”
“Just so,” said the lady with energy. “Your last remark is to the point, whatever may be the worth of your previous statements, and I intend to cut off the whole of my superfluous skirts in order to clothe old nurse and such as she with them.”
Rosa laughingly approved of this decision, for she was like-minded with her mother, but her father did not respond. The look of care had returned to his brow, and there was cause for it for Colonel Brentwood had just learned from his solicitor that he was a ruined man.