“Thank Heaven! it’s broken now and for ever.”
“I’ve broken off your engagement to Edward Cope,” whispered the Squire to Jane in the hall, as he kissed her. “Are you glad or sorry, dear?”
“Glad—very, very glad, papa,” she whispered back as she rained a score of kisses on his face. Then she began to cry, and with that she ran away to her own room till she could recover herself.
“Women are queer cattle,” said the Squire, turning to Tom, “and I’ll be hanged if I can ever make them out.”
“From Miss Culpepper’s manner, sir,” said Tom, gravely, “I should judge that you had told her something that pleased her very much indeed.”
“Then what did she begin snivelling for?” said the Squire, gruffly.
“Why not tell him everything?” said the Squire to himself, as he and Tom sat down in the drawing-room. “He knows a good deal already,—why not tell him more? I know he can do nothing towards helping me to raise five thousand pounds, but it will do me good to talk to him. I must talk to somebody—and I feel sure my secret is quite safe with him. I’ll tell him while Jenny’s out of the room.”
The Squire coughed and hemmed, and poked the fire violently before he could find a word to say. “Bristow,” he burst out at last, “I want to raise five thousand five hundred pounds in five days from now, and as I’m rather a bad hand at borrowing, I thought that you could, maybe, give me a hint as to how it could best be done. Cope would have advanced it for me in a moment, only that he happens to be rather short of funds just now, and I don’t want to trouble any of my other friends if it can anyhow be managed without.” He began to hum the air of an old drinking-song, and poked the fire again. “Capital coals these,” he added. “And I got ’em cheap, too. The market went up three shillings a ton the very day after these were sent in.”
“Five thousand five hundred pounds is rather a large amount, sir,” said Tom, slowly.
“Of course it’s a large amount,” said the Squire, testily. “If it were only a paltry hundred or two I wouldn’t trouble anybody. But never mind, Bristow—never mind. I didn’t suppose that you could help me when I mentioned it; and, after all, it’s a matter of very little consequence whether I raise the money or not.”