For despite her faith in the efficiency of her trustee, Mrs. Maldon would worry about finance; she would yield to an exquisitely painful dread lest "anything should happen"--happen, that is, to prevent her from dying in the comfortable and dignified state in which she had lived. Her income was not large--a little under three hundred pounds a year--but with care it sufficed for her own wants, and for gifts, subscriptions, and an occasional carriage. There would have been a small margin but for the constant rise in prices. As it was, there was no permanent margin. And to have cut off a single annual subscription, or lessened a single customary gift, would have mortally wounded her pride. The gradual declension of property values in Brougham Street had been a danger that each year grew more menacing. The moment had long ago come when the whole rents of the mortgaged cottages would not cover her interest. The promise of the Corporation Improvement Scheme had only partially reassured her; it seemed too good to be true. She could not believe without seeing. She now saw, suddenly, blindingly. And her relief, beneath that stately deportment of hers, was pathetic in its simple intensity. It would have moved John Batchgrew, had he been in any degree susceptible to the thrill of pathos. "I doubt if I've seen so much money all at once before," said Mrs. Maldon, smiling weakly. "Happen not!" said Mr. Batchgrew, proud, with insincere casualness, and he added in exactly the same tone: "I'm leaving it with ye to-night." Mrs. Maldon was aghast, but she feigned sprightliness as she exclaimed-- "You're not leaving all this money here to-night?" "I am," said the trustee. "That's what I came for. Evans's were three hours late in completing, and the bank was closed. I have but just got it. I'm not going home." (He lived eight miles off, near Axe.) "I've got to go to a Church meeting at Red Cow, and I'm sleeping there. John's Ernest is calling here for me presently. I don't fancy driving over them moors with near a thousand pun in my pocket--and colliers out on strike--not at my age, missis! If you don't know what Red Cow is, I reckon I do. It's your money. Put it in a drawer and say nowt, and I'll fetch it to-morrow. What'll happen to it, think ye, seeing as it hasn't got legs?" He spoke with the authority of a trustee. And Mrs. Maldon felt that her reputation for sensible equanimity was worth preserving. So she said bravely-- "I suppose it will be all right." "Of course!" snapped the trustee patronizingly. "But I must tell Rachel." "Rachel? Rachel? Oh! _Her_! Why tell any one?" Mr. Batchgrew sniffed very actively. "Oh! I shouldn't be easy if I didn't tell Rachel," insisted Mrs. Maldon with firmness. Before the trustee could protest anew she had rung the bell. VIII