had a big house for her, so that she might make
friends among the rich. Perhaps she's right. I have made her neither
one thing nor another. Mary, if I had never come to London, I might have
lived happily. My place was away there, in the old home. I've known that
for many a year. I've thought: wait till I've made a little more money,
and I'll go back. But it was never done; and now it looks to me as if
I had spoilt the lives of my children, as well as my own. I can't trust
Nancy, that's the worst of it. You don't know what she did on Jubilee
night. She wasn't with Mr. Barmby and the others--Barmby told me about
it; she pretended to lose them, and went off somewhere to meet a man
she's never spoken to me about. Is that how a good girl would act? I
didn't speak to her about it; what use? Very likely she wouldn't tell me
the truth. She takes it for granted I can't understand her. She thinks
her education puts her above all plain folk and their ways--that's it.'

Mary's eyes had fallen, and she kept silence.

'Suppose anything happened to me, and they were left to themselves. I
have money to leave between them, and of course they know it. How could
it do them anything but harm? Do you know that Horace wants to marry
that girl Fanny French--a grinning, chattering fool--if not worse.
He has told me he shall do as he likes. Whether or no it was right to
educate Nancy, I am very sure that I ought to have done with _him_ as I
meant at first. He hasn't the brains to take a good position. When his
schooling went on year after year, I thought at last to make of him
something better than his father--a doctor, or a lawyer. But he hadn't
the brains: he disappointed me bitterly. And what use can he make of
my money, when I'm in my grave? If I die soon he'll marry, and ruin
his life. And won't it be the same with Nancy? Some plotting, greedy
fellow--the kind of man you see everywhere now-a-days, will fool her for
the money's sake.'

'We must hope they'll be much older and wiser before they have to act
for themselves,' said Mary, looking into her master's troubled face.

'Yes!' He came nearer to her, with a sudden hopefulness. 'And whether I
live much longer or not, I can do something to guard them against their
folly. They needn't have the money as soon as I am gone.'

He seated himself in front of his companion.

'I want to ask you something, Mary. If they were left alone, would you
be willing to live here still, as you do now, for