“Yes, my dear.” He laid down his paper, and looked a question.

 

“Kindly tell me again, papa, how much money I have in my very own right. You have often told me before, but I always forget figures.”

 

“You have two hundred and fifty pounds a year of your own, under your aunt's will.

 

“And Ida?”

 

“Ida has one hundred and fifty.”

 

“Now, I think I can live very well on fifty pounds a year, papa. I am not very extravagant¹, and I could make my own dresses if I had a sewing-machine.”

 

“Very likely, dear.”

 

“In that case I have two hundred a year which I could do without.”

 

“If it were necessary.”

 

“But it is necessary. Oh, do help me, like a good, dear, kind papa, in this matter, for my whole heart is set upon it. Harold is in sore need of money, and through no fault of his own.” With a woman's tact² and eloquence³, she told the whole story. “Put yourself in my place, papa. What is the money to me? I never think of it from year's end to year's end. But now I know how precious it is. I could not have thought that money could be so valuable. See what I can do with it. It may help to save him. I must have it by to-morrow. Oh, do, do advise me as to what I should do, and how I should get the money.”

 

The Doctor smiled at her eagerness. “You are as anxious to get rid of money as others are to gain it,” said he. “In another case I might think it rash, but I believe in your Harold, and I can see that he has had villainous treatment. You will let me deal with the matter.”

 

“You, papa?”

 

“It can be done best between men. Your capital, Clara, is some five thousand pounds, but it is out on a mortgage, and you could not call it in.”

 

“Oh, dear! oh, dear!”

 

“But we can still manage. I have as much at my bank. I will advance it to the Denvers as coming from you, and you can repay it to me, or the interest of it, when your money becomes due.”

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