‘Well, it wasn’t the most comfortable kind of departure, certainly—four miles on foot on a cold March morning, and an infant to carry into the bargain. But my poor wife and I had gone through too much to be particular about trifles, and we were both of us sustained by the thought of a snug little fortune in my breast pocket; for you may suppose that to us two hundred pounds odd seemed the capital of a future Rothschild. Mrs. Trevanard had given us some substantial clothing into the bargain, and my poor Nell wore a good cloth cloak, under which the baby was kept warm and snug. She was stronger, too, my poor girl, for the month’s rest and plentiful food that we had enjoyed at Borcel—indeed, though our lodging there was but a deserted hayloft, I don’t think either of us was ever happier than when Nell sat at her needlework and I lay luxuriously reposing on a truss of hay, while I read an old magazine aloud to her. We were shut out from the world, but we had peace and rest and plenty; and I think we were pretty much like the birds of the air as to thought of the morrow in those days. But now that I had Mrs. Trevanard’s savings in my breast pocket I began to take a serious view of life, and throughout that walk to Seacomb I was scheming and contriving, till at last, just as we came in sight of the town, I cried out in a burst of enthusiasm, “Yes, Nell, I’ve hit it.” “Hit what?” asked my wife. “Hit upon the surest way to make our fortunes, my girl,” I answered, all of a glow with the thought. “We’ll take a theatre.” “Lor’, Mat,” said my wife with a gasp, “and I can play the leading business!” Managers had been putting other women over her head in the Juliets and Rosalinds, and she felt it, poor soul. “But Matthew,” she went on, growing suddenly serious, “we haven’t seen much good come of taking theatres. Look at Seacomb, for instance.” “Seacomb isn’t a case in point,” I answered, quite put out by her narrow way of looking at things. “A psalm-singing place like that was never likely to support the drama. When I take a theatre it will be in a very different town from Seacomb.” “But,” remonstrated poor Nell, “don’t you think it would be breaking faith with Mrs. Trevanard? She gave us the money to set us up in some nice little business. We were to start with part of the capital and keep the rest in reserve against a rainy day.” “Well, isn’t theatrical management a business?” I retorted, “and the only business that I am fit for. Do you suppose that I can blossom into a full-blown grocer, or break out all at once into a skilful butcher, because Mrs. Trevanard wishes it? Why, I shouldn’t know one end of an ox from the other when his head was off. And as for Mrs. Trevanard,” I went on, “you ought to have sense enough to know that she cares precious little what becomes of us now we’ve taken this unfortunate child off her hands.” “I don’t believe that, Matthew,” answered my wife, “she’s a Christian, and she wouldn’t like us to starve on the child’s account.”