ed
enthusiasm.

Dora also echoed the "yes" with a quiet intensity.

Annie, on her part, graciously approved of her juniors, and rewarded
them by patronizing them tremendously.

"That is right. I don't very well know yet what Dora and I can do, but
we'll find something. However, you two young ones are the geniuses of
the family, and we'll look to you. I suspect Dora and I will have to
march under your wings. You, Rose, must be quick and paint Academy
pictures, get them hung on the line, and have them sold before the
opening day. May must pass all her examinations in no time, gain a
scholarship, and be appointed classical mistress to a Girls' Day-school,
of which she will eventually become the head. Fancy 'little May' a
full-blown school ma'am."

"Dear! what creatures girls are! They are jesting and laughing already
over their own and other people's misfortunes. It is little they know of
life, it is little they guess what will befall them," sighed Mrs. Millar
to herself. Nevertheless, in the middle of her anxiety and sorrow, she
was in some respects a happy woman, and she had a dim but consoling
perception of the truth.

CHAPTER VI.

THE CLOUD DEEPENS.

The storm burst, but the cloud did not disperse, it only closed in more
darkly over Redcross. At the same time, as the bank authorities had
foreseen, there was little or nothing of the wild, panic-stricken run on
the capital which heralds and intensifies many a bank's fall. The losers
went about their ordinary occupations. The Rector preached, presided
over meetings of the vestry and Christian Associations, and attended to
his sick. Doctor Millar looked after his sick. Colonel Russell even went
to the Literary Institute and read the newspapers as usual. Every one of
them wore his customary face, however abnormal the working of his heart.
The Redcross victims, and many another innocent man besides, behaved
like gentlemen, Englishmen, and Christians. There was neither outward
fuss nor fury.

The individual who came nearest to breaking down was naturally Mr.
Carey. The very forbearance with which he was treated cut to the quick
the honest man who had been the tool of fools and knaves, brazening out
their share of the business and contriving to escape with the least
damage of anybody. They had been impecunious, trading upon other
people's funds to begin with, and Carey's Bank's failure only left them
where they were originally, under circumstances in which n