“How!” Horace repeated hesitatingly, and then broke out: “How! Why because from the time he was sixteen--from my poor father’s death almost--poor Atty has played the fool. And such a fool! Not having the most remote idea either of the value of money or of the wickedness of men and women; with our good father in his grave, and with--but we won’t talk of _her_. Poor old Atty! How often in those times that seem so long ago now, and so miserable--and yet what almost children we both were--he and I have crept at night into each other’s rooms to consult in our blind ignorance on what could by any possibility be done! Such a heap of silly ideas as we propounded then; such methods as we turn by turn proposed to keep the knowledge of poor Atty’s bills and foolishness from my mother!” “I daresay that it would have been much better had she known it all then,” suggested Kate. “Of course it would have been a thousand times better,” rejoined Horace, who was beginning to show some deference to his sister’s opinions; “but how were we to find courage enough to be open? I ask you, Kate--and no one could answer the question better--whether milady is the kind of mother to whom the most morally courageous lad in existence could, without a good deal of winding-up, confess that he had run-up bills, had betted on the great boat-race, had been to the Jews, and, in short, was no more worthy to be called her son?” “Poor dear Atty! I don’t wonder he couldn’t do it; and I suppose (I can guess now, when I remember all the trouble he so often seemed to be in) that those bills never were paid, and that--” “Not only not paid, but _more_, to the tune of thousands upon thousands, added to their amount. And then the Jews! But what’s the use of telling you, child, about such things? Here we are at the church-door, and we shall find milady--God forgive her!--saying her prayers with as much devotion as if--” “Hush,” remonstrated Kate, feeling the indecorum, especially standing as they two did, on God’s-acre, of speaking harsh truths concerning their only remaining parent; “hush, Racy dear, she is our mother; let us try to remember it, however much she may do to put the fact out of our heads.” * * * * * “Did you ever see any one so changed as that pretty Mrs. Beacham? Still more like a lady even than she used to be--I mean, she hasn’t the same fresh _country_ look that everyone admired so before. Mr. Delmaine thinks her both out of health and out of spirits; he said so yesterday afternoon to me when mamma and I went to the church to see the decorations. She attends to her class, though, at the school just the same as ever, and gets the children on wonderfully with their singing. How well they sang the anthem to-day! and all, Mr. Delmaine says, thanks to Mrs. John Beacham.”