"I wish we had the money," said Hugh the practical, "to see to those old upper rooms. The rain is in them to-night, I daresay, and some night of high wind we shall have the chimneys through the floors down upon our beds." "Ah! dear boy," said Aline, "many things come to Brandon, but never money: I believe we shall be the poor Brandons to the end of time." "And to think," grumbled Donald, "that there are chests full of gold in Angry--at least so the poor people say--which ought to be ours by right!" "We don't grudge Sir Rupert his gold," said Aline with a little shrug of her shoulders. "Not if the other things must be thrown in, you mean," said Hugh shrewdly. "But, Aline, we--Donald and I--are going to save the old place yet." "But how, dear boy? You don't know how much money we should want." Hugh, who had been lying on the hearth-rug, stretched himself all his young length, with a suggestion of a creature cramped for space. "You must let us go, Aline. We are no longer children, and there are fortunes to be made in the world." "But where would you go?" asked Aline in a hushed voice. Her face had grown a little paler, but she hardly seemed surprised. Perhaps she had been dreading some such thing for long. "We will go to Africa to Mr. Desmond. He told us long ago that he should have room for us when we were men. Now we are men, and he has room for us. He has opened up a new diamond field, as you would know, Aline, if you ever read the newspapers." "Must both of you go?" said Aline in the same hushed voice. "We are only women and children here, and Pierce left us to you, Hugh." "There is nothing for a man to do here, and we will stick together till we bring home the ransom of Brandon in our hands. We have friends now. It is not as in the old days when we knew no one. There is the General, and there is Captain MacNeill always at hand." Hugh looked at me curiously. It made me suspect that he knew something of the state of affairs. "They will befriend you," he went on earnestly. "Captain MacNeill knows, and thinks we are right. The General wanted me to go into the army, but that means cadging on him, and I prefer, and so does Donald, to make our fortunes." "How do you know Mr. Desmond will help you?" said Aline. "He helped Pierce, and they quarrelled." "He would not remember it against us," cried the boys together. "He is coming home, Aline," said Donald, suddenly turning all the contents of a miscellaneous pocket on to the table. There were five pocket-handkerchiefs, a clay pipe, a roll of string, a pocket-knife, some loose matches, a piece of shag tobacco, a book of flies, and several more or less dilapidated wads of paper. He smoothed out one of these with his hands, and pointed to the conclusion of a paragraph. "_It is rumoured that Mr. Desmond will spend a portion of next summer in revisiting his native country._" He read it aloud, and then handed it to Aline.