his law-books, and the quirks and catches of
their citations, when little Sarah had been planted at one end of the
great, lumbering cradle in which the first Fotherington might have been
rocked,--planted there to be entertained by Tommy, who, inserting
himself at the other end, with a hand on either side, loudly rocked the
great ark quite across the room from one end to the other, piping
meanwhile, like a boatswain's whistle, an interminable ballad of the
Fair Rosamond that his sister Margaret had taught him, without ever
dreaming of the evil use to which it would be put, and piping the more
noisily the more he guessed at Frederick's annoyance. Of the two
remaining children, Margaret taught school all day, being a visiting
governess in two families; Helen stayed at home and did the house-work
and the sewing, for the mother had been an invalid ever since her
husband's death and the birth of little Sarah, something over two years
ago.

This family had yet a trifle remaining of their mother's small dowry,
invested, as it had been by their father, in certain bridge-stock, which
paid dividends of exactly one per cent. This gave the two children
molasses on their bread; the elders ate their bread without it. They had
a cow, that fed in the paddock,--a cow lineally descended from a famous
Puritan cow of the Fotherington breed,--and from her milk once a
fortnight Helen contrived to scrape together butter enough for her
mother's morning slice of toast. They completed the inventory of their
wealth by mention of an old horse, which every day Frederick harnessed
into an antique chaise, in order that he might take his mother for an
airing.

Meantime, Helen, left with the two children alone in the house, would
scrub, and scour, and cook, and sew, and sing songs, and tell
stories,--stories of the good cheer of other days that once this barren
house afforded, half of which she believed, and many of which she made
up. Thus gradually left so much to herself and her fancies, while the
others either detested their origin or laughed at it, Miss Helen had
persuaded herself into a conviction that it was all a very fine thing,
and was sure that they had by no means come to the end of such a tether,
and that some day or other something was to turn up on it. There were
the customary legends of every rich family for her to choose from; she
might take that of the day when, after General Fotherington's funeral,
the guests, returning from the grav