“You know, Sheila, our father was rather a proud man. He thought a good deal of birth and family, and of being one of the Cholmondeleys of Warwickshire. He married our beautiful mother for love; but he took her right away from her family—he told me so himself as he lay dying—and she never saw any of them again. She had only quite a small fortune then. The Cossarts have got rich since her marriage. But our father’s property has been dwindling and dwindling, and he has dipped again and again into capital, and everything is mortgaged up to the hilt, as Mr. Dart calls it. Sheila, I am afraid there will be very little left for us except the little fortune of our mother’s, which was settled upon her and her children.” Sheila understood very little of business, and Oscar not much more; but he had received confidences from their dying father, and had had interviews with the family lawyer, so that he was better acquainted with the prospect before them than the sister. “Father thought at the last that he had made a mistake in holding aloof from the Cossarts. He wrote both to Uncle Cossart and Uncle Tom, and they are our guardians. I think they mean to be kind to us, though they could not at once get away to be here for the funeral. But Uncle Tom will come almost at once to look into things; and he is going to give me a berth at the works. He says that in his letter.” “I call that the horridest thing of all!” flashed out Sheila. “You to be stuck down at a desk or something, in some chemical works, or whatever it is! Why can’t they let you finish your course at Oxford? Mother’s money would be lots for that!” “Oh, yes; but then what would be the good?” asked Oscar gravely. “No, Sheila, I have seen too much of what Oxford does for poor men, to want to finish my three years there. I’ve no great gifts. I should only take an ordinary degree. I should have no chance of fellowship or tutorship there, and I’ve no gift for teaching. It’s much better really to go into business young, where one has a chance of pushing one’s way. Lots of fellows would give their ears for my chances at our uncles’ works. As I can’t be a country gentleman like our father, and be master of the dear old place, I’d sooner go right away and start fair at something altogether different.” Sheila heaved a deep sigh as her eyes travelled from her brother’s grave face, out through the open window and across the familiar landscape of wood and water. It was a lovely February day—one of those days which come as a foretaste of summer, when the sun shines with power, and all the air is full of scents of spring, and one forgets that winter is not yet gone, and begins to welcome the promise of the year. “I never thought we should have to leave the dear old home. Is it certain that it must go, Oscar? Surely father could not have meant to leave things so bad for us?”