She came back from the cemetery with dry eyes and soberly presided at the inevitable meal (where she had to comfort a lachrymose O’Rourke) and, on the morrow, soberly set out to visit Mr. Travers, and to tell him that, of course, she could not now keep Sam at school. It was little that Travers was allowed to guess from this stoic that this was the end of her dream for Sam, that with Tom’s death the underpinnings of her world had flopped. And her pride stood where it stood five years ago: no more now than then would she accept from Travers money to pay expenses. She shook her head defiantly. “The lad’ull have to work,” she said. Travers knew adamant when he saw it. “Then, at least, let him come here and work in my office.” Anne almost glared. “I want a fair field and no favour. He’ll have to start as office-boy, with the wages of an office-boy.” “Oh, hardly that, Mrs. Branstone. Remember, he comes to me from the Classical Transitus.” “Yes,” she said, “and much use that is to an estate agent. He can’t add up a row of figures.” She had no delusions about the practical value of a public school education. “I think, though, that we must let it count for something,” he replied, and Anne, compromising against the grain, consented to let it count for fifteen shillings a week “until we see,” added Mr. Travers, “how he shapes.” He intended to see very soon. Anne nodded grimly. “I’ll see he shapes,” she said, and Sam, silent witness of this pregnant interview, was hardly surprised by Anne’s first words on reaching home. “Get out those old arithmetic text-books of yours,” she said, “and look up mensuration. I’ve not forgotten it, if you have.” CHAPTER VI--THE NEST-EGG |TOM Branstone had drawn a wage of a pound a week, and tips may have averaged ten shillings but more probably did not; your sixpenny tipper is a rare bird in Manchester. Yet Anne had saved steadily, and she had not allowed a life-long habit to be interrupted by a little thing like the necessity of providing Sam with Grammar School books and clothes. I do not say that it was admirable in her, but merely that it was heroic. It was an incredible feat, but it can be done: it is done every day by people for whom the word “thrift” has meaning. Perhaps they are often unlovely in their lives or perhaps they have the robust satisfaction of those who live for an idea: opinion has always differed as to whether what they do is worth doing, and modern opinion inclines strongly to the belief that it is not. Life to these iconoclasts seems more important than the means of life. To Anne it seemed abundantly worth while, and the proof was here now when she found that the interest on her savings amounted to three and four-pence weekly. They could live on Sam’s earnings and Anne’s “means” without pinching. Her forethought made all the difference now between too little and enough.