“Then you will consent?” he said, glad to change the subject and be friendly again.
And a day or two later she did finally consent to accompany him. His proposal had come at an opportune moment, when she was heartsore, and restless, and anxious to escape from the painful memories and associations of the past month.
One of her first steps was to advertise in the papers for a home with tuition for a girl under sixteen, in a small family residing in a rural district in the west or south-west of England. The answers were to be addressed to her newspaper agent, who was instructed not to forward them to her in driblets, but deliver them all together.
Mr. Starbrow stayed another week in town, and during that time he went somewhere every day with his sister and Fan; they drove in the Park, went to picture galleries, to morning concerts, and then, if not tired, to a theatre in the evening. It was consequently a very full week to Fan, who now for the first time saw something of the hidden wonders and glories of London. And she was happy; but this novel experience—the sight of all that unimagined wealth of beauty—was even less to her than Mary's perfect affection, which was now no longer capricious, bursting forth at rare intervals like sunshine out of a stormy sky. Then that week in fairyland was over, and Tom Starbrow went back to Manchester to arrange his affairs; but before going he presented Fan with a very beautiful lady's watch and chain, the watch of chased gold with blue enamelled face.
“I do not wish you to forget me, Fan,” he said, holding her hand in his, and looking into her young face smilingly, yet with a troubled expression in his eyes, “and there is nothing like a watch to remind you of an absent friend; sometimes it will even repeat his words if you listen attentively to its little ticking language. It is something like the sea-shell that whispers about the ocean waves when you hold it to your ear.”
That pretty little speech only served to make the gift seem more precious to Fan; for she was not critical, and it did not sound in the least studied to her. It was delivered, however, when Mary was out of the room; when she returned and saw the watch, after congratulating the girl she threw a laughing and somewhat mocking glance at her brother; for which Tom was prepared, and so he met it bravely, and did not blush or lose his temper.
In due time the answers to the advertisement arrived—in a sack, for they numbered about four hundred.
“Oh, how will you ever be able to read them all!” exclaimed Fan, staring in a kind of dismay at the pile, where Miss Starbrow had emptied them on the carpet.
“I have no such mad intention,” said the other with a laugh, and turning them over with her pretty slippered foot. “As a rule people that answer advertisements—especially women—are fools. If you advertise for a piece of old point lace, about a thousand people who have not got such a thing will write to say that they will sell you wax flowers, old books, ostrich feathers, odd numbers of Myra's Journal, or any rubbish they may have by them; I dare say that most of the writers of these letters are just as wide of the mark. Sit here at my feet, Fan; and you shall open the letters for me and read the addresses. No, not that way with your fingers. If you stop to tear them to pieces, like a hungry cat tearing its meat, it will take too long. Use the paper-knife, and open them neatly and quickly.”
Fan began her task, and found scores of letters from the suburbs of London and all parts of the kingdom, from Land's End to the north of Scotland; and in nine cases out of ten after reading the address her mistress would say, “Tear it twice across, and throw it into the basket, Fan.”