“If you please. Papa is somewhat fastidious; but he could not object to my going there; and its being so very near our own house would be a great point of--” “Constance!” interrupted a voice at this juncture. “Is Mr. Yorke there?” “He is here, mamma,” replied Constance, walking forward to Mrs. Channing, Mr. Yorke attending her. “I thought I heard you enter,” she said, as Mr. Yorke took her hand. “Mr. Channing will be pleased to see you, if you will come in and chat with him. The children have told you the tidings. It is a great blow to their prospects.” “But they seem determined to bear it bravely,” he answered, in a hearty tone. “You may be proud to have such children, Mrs. Channing.” “Not proud,” she softly said. “Thankful!” “True. I am obliged to you for correcting me,” was the clergyman’s ingenuous answer, as he walked, with Mrs. Channing, across the hall. Constance halted, for Judith came out of the kitchen, and spoke in a whisper. “And what’s the right and the wrong of it, Miss Constance? _Is_ the money gone?” “Gone entirely, Judith. Gone for good.” “For good!” groaned Judith; “I should say for ill. Why does the Queen let there be a Lord Chancellor?” “It is not the Lord Chancellor’s fault, Judith. He only administers the law.” “Why couldn’t he just as well have given it _for_ your papa, as against him?” “I suppose he considers that the law is on the other side,” sighed Constance. Judith, with a pettish movement, returned to her kitchen; and at that moment Hamish came downstairs. He had changed his dress, and had a pair of new white gloves in his hand. “Are you going out to-night, Hamish?” There was a stress on the word “to-night,” and Hamish marked it. “I promised, you know, Constance. And my staying away would do no good; it could not improve things. Fare you well, my pretty sister. Tell mamma I shall be home by eleven.” “It’ll be a sad cut-down for ‘em all,” muttered Judith, gazing at Hamish round the kitchen door-post. “Where he’ll find money for his white gloves and things now, is beyond my telling, the darling boy! If I could but get to that Lord Chancellor!” Had you possessed the privilege of living in Helstonleigh at the time of which this story treats--and I can assure you you might live in a less privileged city--it is possible that, on the morning following the above events, your peaceful slumbers might have been rudely broken by a noise, loud enough to waken the seven sleepers of Ephesus.