“Oh, Fred!” said Mrs. Dirom, with eyes of deep reproach. She added in a tremulous voice, “My grandfather had a great deal of property in the country. He had indeed, I assure you, although you think we have nothing but money. And if that does not make a gentleman, what does?” “What indeed?” said her son: but he made no further reply. And the sisters interposed. “We were talking of what we shall all do in case the firm should come to grief, and all the money be lost.” “Oh, girls!” Mrs. Dirom started violently and put her hand to her heart. “Fred! you don’t mean to say that there are rumours in the city, or a word whispered--” “Not when I heard last--but then I have not been in the city for a month. That reminds me,” said Fred, “that really I ought to put in an appearance--just once in a way.” “You mean you want to have a run to town?” “Yes, dear,” said his mother, “go if you think you could be of any use. Oh, you don’t know what it is you are talking of so lightly. I could tell you things--Oh, Fred, if you think there is anything going on, any danger--” “Nothing of the sort,” he said, with a laugh. “We were only wondering what we should be good for mother--not much, I believe. I might perhaps draw for the _Graphic_ fancy pictures of battles and that sort of thing; or, if the worst came to the worst, there is the _Police News_.” “You have both got Vocations,” said Phyllis. “It is fine for you. You know what to do, you two. But I can do nothing; I should have to Marry.” She spoke with a languid emphasis as of capitals, in her speech. “Oh, children!” cried Mrs. Dirom, “what are you thinking of? You think all that is clever, but it does not seem clever to me. It is just the dreadful thing in business that one day you may be up at the top of the tree, and next morning--” “Nowhere!” said Fred, with a burlesque groan. And then they all laughed. The anxious middle-class mother looked at them as the hen of the proverb looks at her ducklings. Silly children! what did they know about it? She could have cried in vexation and distress. “You laugh,” she said, “but you would not laugh if you knew as much as I do. The very name of such a thing is unlucky. I wouldn’t let myself think of it lest it should bring harm. Things may be quite right, and I hope and believe they are quite right: but if there was so much as a whisper on the Exchange that his children--his own children--had been joking on the subject. Oh, a whisper, that’s enough!”