to me smoothly, and tell me yo' ha' made a mistake. Yo' are a
rogue, and, what maybe is worse, I mistrust me yo' are a fool!'

'Mother! mother!' the girl cried.

'He is a fool!' the old woman repeated, eyeing him with a dreadful
sternness. 'Or he would ha' kept his mistake to himself. Who knows of
it? Or why should he be telling them? 'Tis for them to find out, not for
him! Yo' call yourself a lawyer? Yo' are a fool!' And she sat down in a
palsy of senile passion. 'Yo' are a fool! And yo' ha' ruined us!'

Mr. Fishwick groaned, but made no reply. He had not the spirit to defend
himself. But Julia, as if all through which she had gone since the day
of her reputed father's death had led her to this point, only that she
might show the stuff of which she was wrought, rose to the emergency.

'Mother,' she said firmly, her hand resting on the older woman's
shoulder, 'you are wrong--you are quite wrong. He would have ruined us
indeed, he would have ruined us hopelessly and for ever, if he had kept
silence! He has never been so good a friend to us as he has shown
himself to-day, and I thank him for his courage. And I honour him!' She
held out her hand to Mr. Fishwick, who having pressed it, his face
working ominously, retired to the window.

'But, my deary, what will yo' do?' Mrs. Masterson cried peevishly. 'He
ha' ruined us!'

'What I should have done if we had never made this mistake,' Julia
answered bravely; though her lips trembled and her face was white, and
in her heart she knew that hers was but a mockery of courage, that must
fail her the moment she was alone. 'We are but fifty pounds worse
than we were.'

'Fifty pounds!' the old woman cried aghast. 'Yo' talk easily of fifty
pounds. And, Lord knows, it is soon spent here. But where will yo'
get another?'

'Well, well,' the girl answered patiently, 'that is true. Yet we must
make the best of it. Let us make the best of it,' she continued,
appealing to them bravely, yet with tears in her voice. 'We are all
losers together. Let us bear it together. I have lost most,' she
continued, her voice trembling. Fifty pounds? Oh, God! what was fifty
pounds to what she had lost. 'But perhaps I deserve it. I was too ready
to leave you, mother. I was too ready to--to take up with new things
and--and richer things, and forget those who had been kin to me and kind
to me all my life. Perhaps this is my punishment. You have lost your
all, but that we will get again. And our friend