‘Poor Reginald!’ cried Lady William. ‘That is what it is to be the prodigal of the family--everything is laid upon him. No, it is quite another matter. It is--why shouldn’t I tell her? It is your father’s brother, who has died and left a great deal of money. And there are things to arrange. If I can settle everything, as I wish--you will be a rich girl. But it is all uncertain, and it has stirred up so much that was gone and past.’ ‘Then it is about money,’ said Mab in a relieved tone. ‘And perhaps we may be rich! Well, that is nothing to trouble about, mother. I should like it, on the contrary. Come out, and leave the letter till to-morrow. Come anyhow--whether you come to the school or not----’ ‘What a little pertinacity you are! But, Mab, there is another side to the question. If it is not settled that you are to be rich--an heiress, as people call it--we shall, perhaps, be very poor, poorer than you can imagine: with nothing--less than nothing!’ cried Lady William, thinking with a pang of the good name and honour--the loss of which Mab never could understand. ‘Well!’ said Mab, with another rub of her cheek upon her mother’s, ‘that’s nothing so very dreadful either. Most people are poor--far, far more people than are rich. We shall be no worse than our neighbours. I daresay we shall be able to do something for our living. We are not useless people, mother, you and me. And now come out, come out, mother dear! You will write your letter much better after you have had a walk. The fresh air puts things into your head, the right things to say----’ ‘Ah, Mab,’ cried Lady William, ‘if you only knew how willing I am to be tempted, how much rather I would put it off--for ever if I could----’ ‘Well, mother, putting it off till the afternoon is not putting it off for ever,’ said sensible Mab. And when Lady William went to get her hat, Mab, who had always a hundred things to do within as well as outside the house, in the course of her moving about as she put things straight upon the table, saw her mother’s letter upon the blotting-book, which Lady William had left open. Mab had no idea that she did anything wrong in looking at it. She had had no hesitation in all her life before, about anything that was her mother’s, and why now? It began, ‘Gentlemen,’ which was a queer mode of address, Mab thought, and this was how it went on: