"If you make Miss Eleanor understand that it would be the greatest comfort and happiness to both of us if she would come and spend the winter with you, and so help you to get used to your great big new house; and more than that, if they'd bring with them some of their candle-sticks and pictures on ivory and that sort of thing, which everybody knows can't be bought for money, it would be the great accommodation to you and make your house look something like what you would like to have it. I believe that old-family lady would come and stay with you this winter, and think all the time that she was giving you something that you ought to have and which nobody in Plainton could give you but herself. And as to Miss Barbara, she'd come along as quick as lightning!" "Willy," said Mrs. Cliff, very earnestly, "have you any good reason to believe that the Thorpedykes are in money trouble?" "Yes, I have," said Willy, "I'm positive of it, and what's more, it's only Miss Barbara who knows it!" Mrs. Cliff sat for some minutes without answering, and then she said, "Willy, you do sometimes get into your head an idea that absolutely sparkles!" CHAPTER XIV WILLY CROUP AS A PHILANTHROPIC DIPLOMATIST Mrs. Cliff was late to breakfast that day, and the reason was that thinking so much about what Willy had said to her she had been very slow in dressing. As soon as she had a chance, Mrs. Cliff took Willy aside and told her that she had determined to adopt her advice about the Thorpedykes. "The more I think of the plan," she said, "the better I like it! But we must be very, very careful about what we do. If Miss Eleanor suspects that I invite them to come to my house because I think they are poor, she will turn into solid stone, and we will find we cannot move her an inch,--but I think I can manage it! When we go home, I will tell them how pleasant we found it for us all to be together, and speak of the loneliness of my new big house. If I can get Miss Eleanor to believe that she is doing me a favor, she may be willing to come; but on no account, Willy, do you say a word to either of them about this plan. If you do, you will spoil everything, for that's your way, Willy, and you know it!" Willy promised faithfully that she would not interfere in the least; but although she was perfectly satisfied with this arrangement, she was not happy. How could she be happy knowing what she did about Miss Barbara? That poor lady was looking sadder than ever, and Willy was very much afraid that she had had another letter from that horrid Mr. Bullock, with whom, she was delighted to think, Mrs. Cliff had never dealt. It would be some days yet before they would go home and make the new arrangement, and then there would be the bill and the collector, and all that horrid business, and if Miss Eleanor found out the condition of affairs,--and if the bill was not paid, she must find out,--she would never come to them. She would probably stay at home and live on bread!