Mr. Sandford, having arranged through his banker about the small payments annually required for the two children, Grace and Margaret Rivers, had never given them much thought since. Their own money had made his payments of small account, though something had been necessary, and the payment of that something was as necessary to his sense of what his promise to his wife meant, as to the comfort and well-being of the children themselves. Having fulfilled what he conceived his duty his mind was at ease; he had kept his promise and it had not inconvenienced him. He was essentially a man who thought that all obligations could be wiped off by money, in some shape or other. When he went to church, which he did only because it was the right thing to do, he gave largely, comprising the whole extent of the charity which was expected of him in that one gift. He gave always the same sum, and felt then that he had done his duty, but he could never understand why people talked sometimes of the "blessedness of giving" and of "a glow of satisfaction." He felt no glow, and, not being by nature a generous man, he thought giving a disagreeable thing; it would have been more disagreeable if he had had less to give; even as it was, he grudged it, and considered it as a very tiresome part of his position.

When he got the letter asking his future wishes about the girls he was very much annoyed. He was not well, having caught cold, and, as he was a man who never showed the slightest consideration for his servants, he had no old servants. There was no one in his house who took any interest in him; he was their paymaster and taskmaster, nothing more. His cold became feverish and he was really ill, so ill that he, for the first time, felt his loneliness. When he rang, his bell was promptly answered, and the trifle he wanted, more because he wanted an excuse to have some one near him, even for a moment, than from any real want, given to him; he lay in lonely state, and felt his loneliness terribly. The undefined dread about his half-sister, the shadowy fears of what those blanks in the list might mean, came and tormented him. There is an old and pathetic saying that deeds of kindness are the brightest lamps round a man's death-bed, but he had no such lamps; he had lived for himself; he could remember nothing, no words of gratitude, for he had earned none: worse than that, he had not always been just in his dealings. Then this letter came and here was a new complication.

He was worse than ever next day; all through the night his fears had been exaggerated and had kept him awake, and in the morning the doctor was sent for—for the first time he wanted one. When he came he was struck by the desolate and uncomfortable look of the rich man's surroundings; his servants were too much afraid of him to spend one unnecessary moment in his company; the contrast between services paid for, and services given from love and affection, were startling to a man who saw the poor in their hours of sickness, and who saw the tenderness of heart and the care amongst them, however roughly it might be shown. He knew little of the man before him, except that he had been a hard man to his brother-in-law and to the half-sister whom he had seen in former days, by the father's side, so often; but he was full of compassion for him and for his want of womanly care and kindness.

"You should have womankind, in some way, about you," he said. "You are not so ill; you will pull through this all right; but you may be ill again, and you need care and kindness. What a pity you have no family! Many a man would marry if he could look forward and see himself left to the mercy of servants and strangers when he is ill."

"I lost my wife," said John Sandford, abruptly.

"I'm sorry," said Doctor Bayne. "I forgot that; I now remember hearing of it. Well, it cannot be helped, but it makes a great difference having young ones about one; young people make one young again."

He stayed some time from pure kindness, and Mr. Sandford was anything but grateful to him; he wanted to think out by himself the thought his words had given him. However, he asked him to come next day; his visit was something to look forward to.

When he left Mr. Sandford lay quietly thinking.

"Young people make one young again."

Perhaps this was true; he was not old; he was strong and had never been ill. He was a hale strong man under sixty, and yet the doctor spoke as though now he must expect illness, then after illness came the end, yes, the end!

The evening shadows crept slowly over everything; all the hours since the doctor had left him John Sandford lay quiet, thinking, thinking of all that had come and gone, all that might come and go.

At length he slept, and in his sleep, caused by the soothing draught given to him, he dreamed strange things; some one, his sister, seemed pursuing him with something that always threatened to overwhelm him, and two girls kept warding it off. He saw their outstretched hands, and he had a sort of consciousness that with them there, she could not hurt him. The dream was so vivid that when he woke he looked round him expecting still to see the pursuing figure. He gave a deep sigh, the reality had been to terrible so him.

The morning light was struggling against the night shadows; it was still very early, so early that no one was astir, save a sleepy girl whose duty it was to light the kitchen-fire, and who was so startled by the sound of his bell that she let her sticks burn out without any coal while she went and stared at the bell-clapper as though there she could discover the reason for its early motion. As she looked it rang again, the master must be ill—what ought she to do? Rouse the cook and risk a furious scolding from her, or go and see what he wanted? While she was hesitating it rang a third time, and in her confusion she did both, she rushed into the cook's room and told her the bell was ringing like mad, and that Mr. Sandford was ill, and she fled upstairs in breathless haste, and knocked and went in, expecting to see her master on the floor in a fit, when she was quite prepared to throw her apron over her head and scream to the best of her ability.

"What do you mean by keeping me waiting and not answering my bell?" he asked in a tone of fury.

She was so surprised to find him able to speak at all that she held her tongue, and this was the best thing she could do.

"I want writing materials and a cup of tea," he said. "Where is Robert?"

"I believe he's in bed, sir, and Mrs. Chalmers, she is not up. I'll make some tea."

"And what the —— do I keep servants for, if they are all to lie in bed in the morning?"

The girl, frightened by his manner, left his door wide open, and he had the satisfaction of hearing her call out to the head of the establishment: "Oh, Mrs. Chalmers, maister Sandford he's just very ill, and he is just lying there and cursing and swearing like anything."

Mrs. Chalmers, fat, forty, but not fair, panted upstairs, raging at Robert for not being "at hand."

Mr. Sandford repeated his wishes, and he added, "It's high time you had a mistress to look after you all, and you'll have one too."

Down went Mrs. Chalmers, who was "that upset" she first sat down and had a cry, then she scolded the girl violently, making those general and vague accusations which are so much harder to bear than any that are definite; scolded Robert and the housemaid, who was used to it, and had too thick a skin to mind; and, the tea being made, she poured out the first cup for Mr. Sandford, which was less good than the second, which she took for herself; then she felt better and retired to her room, till the house was "right," and to reflect in silence upon the threat held over her of a mistress to keep all in order.

It will be seen that all these things together combined to bring about two results—the peremptory command to Mrs. Dorriman, and an invitation to Grace and Margaret Rivers to consider Renton House as their home, at any rate for the present.

If there was a wide difference between the way this invitation was given, there was a still wider difference in the way it was received. We have seen how poor Mrs. Dorriman felt it to be the loss of her independence and the uprooting of her quiet and peaceful life.

But the Rivers girls had that boundless spring of hope that is the delightful portion of youth and health combined; and in the invitation conveyed to them through the banker they only saw fresh kindness.

They had been all these years at a very second-rate English school; they had no visitors, nothing, not even holidays, to break the monotony of school life, and the prospect of going anywhere was exciting.

They had the misfortune there of being just a little above their companions in position, their father being a man of good family and their mother well connected; they had also a little independence of their own, a hundred and twenty pounds a year, and they were the wards of Mr. Sandford, whose wealth was immensely exaggerated, as fortune often is when at all undefined.

The two sisters who kept the school were kindly-intentioned, weak, and very ignorant women, whose educational deficiencies did not they thought signify, because they supervised only, and taught nothing themselves—the fact being that they were not capable of distinguishing real teaching from something of a very superficial kind.

The girls went there at six and eight years old; they were nice-looking girls, with no real beauty, but good-looking enough for partial friends to admire, and enemies to dispraise their personal appearance. The old ladies were fond of them, flattered and spoiled them, and their companions followed suit. Never did two girls go out into the wide world less fitted to take up a position in it properly. Grace had a rooted conviction that in some way she was a little better than every one else, and must always lead everywhere; and Margaret, herself very gentle, timid, and of a clinging nature, saw everything from Grace's standpoint, measured everything by Grace's standard, conceived her to be the most beautiful, cleverest, and most wonderful creature ever made, and thought it quite natural that she should expect always to be first everywhere. Everything she did she conceived to be almost inspired, she admired her, looked up to her, and had not a thought or feeling of her own, apart from her.

The girls left school, escorted as far as Edinburgh by a teacher going there. They were very much surprised no one met them there, but they went on to Glasgow, confident that here some one would come for them.

Never, as far as they could remember, had they left school since first going there, and even Grace, who was independent and capable, she thought, of going anywhere by herself, was depressed when they arrived in Glasgow.

It was a drizzling, dark autumnal day, the heavy pall of smoke that makes that prosperous place look so dismal and dingy to all outsiders, lay over everything. They could not see a hundred yards on either side of them, and when they got out of the carriage they were bewildered and dejected.

Every one seemed too busy to attend to them, and Grace thought it most extraordinary, and Margaret still more extraordinary, that no one paid her any attention. Surely they could all see who she was?

It was with difficulty that they got some information, and found that they had to go to a different station, and in haste, too, if they wished to catch the only train that went to Renton that night.

Tired and disappointed, they got a cab, and no more forlorn girls crossed the busy town than those two that day.

At the other station, by some mishap, but one clerk was left to attend to the demands of first, second, and third class passengers, and there was a crowd on either side. Grace nearly gave it up in despair, and had only just time to run for her train, leaving her dignity for the moment to take care of itself.

When they got to Renton they looked about—no one was there. Their spirits again sank considerably, and it was with ruffled temper, coming of wounded self-consequence, that Grace got into a cab with her sister, and crawled on up the hill to Renton House.

What she had expected, or what her dreams had been, is a matter of no moment, for they vanished there and then. A short tree-less drive up to a square house of no great size, with a good honest cabbage-garden beside and behind it,—a field, in which fluttered some household washing, and the town, smoky and full of factories below it, this was the palace of her dreams, the Renton House to which she had already invited (luckily in a very vague manner) her favourite schoolfellows.

Robert, who wore no particular clothes, answered the door, and showed them into a large primly-furnished room, and went off to announce their arrival to Mr. Sandford.

He came in and received them kindly enough, told them to wash their hands quickly as dinner was ready. But his pompous manner chilled them. Something in it seemed to say so plainly to them—"You have no real claim upon me, but I am giving you my countenance all the same."

In their room alone, the sisters looked at each other for a moment in silence; then their hearts sank, and forgetting time, and all but their disappointment, they cried in each others arms long and bitterly.

It was characteristic of Grace, that, in all her trouble and depression, she still thought of changing her dress. Dinner was ready, and they were twice sent for, but though Margaret was ready she would not go down by herself; and her sister, who wished to make an impression, was particular to the last item; the correct tying of a bow, and the placing of it exactly where it should produce the desired effect.

They went downstairs, and found the drawing-room empty; lower still to the dining-room, where Mr. Sandford had an unpromising scowl upon his brow.

"Less might have served you," he said, glancing at the girls, "when I was waiting."

"I am very sorry," began Margaret, but she was stopped by Grace—

"You might have put dinner off," she said, coolly, "as our train gets here so late—it was quite impossible to be ready sooner."

Mr. Sandford stared at her attentively for a moment; a grim smile crossed his face; but he looked from her to her sister, and his countenance softened. Margaret was very like his wife—not so good-looking he thought, but like—and he was glad, and he took a fancy to her from that time.

There was plenty of everything, though all was plain. Mr. Sandford said little; Grace was the chief speaker, and what she said did not please him. She found fault with the trains, the smoke, the bustle, the inconvenience at the railway-station. He heard her in silence for some time, and then, looking up, he said, sarcastically—

"If I had thought of it, I might have ordered a special train for you."

Grace was slow to see a joke against herself, but she had an uncomfortable feeling (very dimly felt) that such a thing might be possible—in him.

Dinner went on. Mr. Sandford, from beneath his shaggy brows, watched the girl before him. He was immensely amused by her airs and graces; and, as observation is frequently mistaken for admiration by wiser people than Grace Rivers, she rose from table quite satisfied with a success which she intended should lead to many important results.

She talked a good deal about this to Margaret that night when they went to their room, and about all the reforms she intended to make in the household. Margaret listened, with all the deference she was accustomed to pay to Grace's remarks, and no misgiving crossed the mind of either sister as to the complete power to be in Grace's hands.

"I shall have a great deal to do," she said, in a tone of much importance, as they finally composed themselves to rest.

As it was her last thought at night, so it was her first idea next morning.

The room they were in was a large square room, and off it was a room that corresponded with the drawing-room below, having equally with it the only bow window in the house, and commanding a country view over some green fields.

It was full of lumber—of old maps, school-books, &c.,—and, as is often the case where no womanly eye is there to interfere, various accumulations it was nobody's business to look after, had gathered there.

Broken china and broken chairs, some old prints, with their glasses broken also. Whatever happened was there concealed from Mr. Sandford's view.

"We will clear this out," said Grace, "put it to rights, and make this our sitting-room."

But she found her determination confronted at the very outset by Mr. Sandford's opposition.

"Is the drawing-room not big enough for you? What do you want a sitting room for? You should be glad enough to have a good warm room; let it be, I am not going to have the house upset by you or any one else."

"But we want a place where we can work and not mind making a litter," urged Grace, "and we can do it ourselves."

"Leave it alone," he said, gruffly, and he walked out of the room.

Grace made a gesture of despair.

"Here will be a more difficult task than I thought," she said, pathetically, to her sister. "Is it not hard that I should have so much trouble at the very beginning?"

"It is hard, darling," said Margaret, gently, "but you will get all you want soon; you know every one does what you like at last; you must just make him do it after a bit, when you know him better."

Grace's next effort was in the direction of the cook; she was determined to bring about a great improvement in her performances. Had she not attended a whole series of cookery classes, and learned how to ice cakes, and many other useful things? With great dignity she rang the drawing-room bell, and when Robert appeared she said, "Send the cook to me."

Robert grinned from ear to ear, and came back again in a very few minutes.

"Cook's busy and cannot come." He stood and looked at her.

Grace made no answer.

"I am to take any message," he said, longing to raise some little disturbance.

"If she does not choose to come for orders I shall give none," she said after a moment with a visible accession to her dignity, and Robert reluctantly departed.

The sisters began unpacking their things, and Grace's spirits rose when they had made their room more like the only home they had ever known.

That evening, when dinner was over, Grace began upon the subject of her duties to Mr. Sandford.

"I do not want to lead a useless life," she began, having well thought over her speech beforehand, but finding it terribly difficult to say it to him now, while his grey eyes, keen, hard, and cold, looked at her unflinchingly, "I want to be useful."

"Indeed?"

"Yes," she said, gaining more courage, "I intend taking a great deal of trouble and getting things right, and being really useful, I do not intend to eat the bread of idleness."

"Are you thinking of being a governess?"

A cold-water douche would hardly have been a greater shock to her.

"I meant I wanted to be useful here."

"Oh! You wanted to be useful. In what way?"

Poor Grace!

"I thought you would like me to order dinner, and—look after things."

"Have you had any experience? I thought you had always been at school. Did you order the dinners there?"

There was something almost insolent in his tone, and Grace through all the thick skin of her self-love, which generally prevented her seeing or feeling any intended slight, winced.

She rallied her courage, however, and said, "As we are with you and it is usual for a lady to be the mistress of the house, I thought...."

John Sandford threw himself back in his chair and laughed out loud. He was immensely tickled by this girl's assumption. His sense of humour—rarely touched—was reached by it; the situation seemed to him to have all the elements of the ridiculous in it, and his laugh was an unaccustomed and noisy laugh—under no control. An angry flush rose on Grace's face, Margaret saw it, and, as usual, threw herself into the breach—

"Grace only meant to do what she thought was her duty," she said bravely, "and it is unkind of you to treat her so—and, my dear Grace don't mind," and she rose and threw her arms round her.

"You are right, my girl," said Mr. Sandford, looking at her with increased respect. "It's a pity your sister does not take a leaf out of your book. 'Those who don't walk on tiptoes need never come down on their heels,' a homely saying but a true one;" then turning to Grace, against whom he felt no softening influence, he said drily, "I am obliged to you for offering to make yourself the mistress of my house, and of not wishing to eat the bread of idleness, and all the rest of it. It all sounds very fine, but if I wanted a mistress—which I do not, being provided with one already—I should not choose an inexperienced girl under twenty, for the post. However, I have to tell you it is not necessary. My sister, Mrs. Dorriman, comes to-morrow, to be the mistress of this house; without her or some one like her, I could not have asked you here; and when she comes, it is my wish that you look up to her and obey her in all things."

Here was a thunder-clap. The girls looked at each other in dismay. His sister! she would then be a feminine edition of himself! All the poor children's dreams of having their time to themselves, and of being to all intents and purposes free, fell to the ground; the shock made Grace silent and Margaret's eyes filled with tears.

"I hope you quite understand," Mr. Sandford said roughly, pleased by the effect he had produced, "I have not reached my time of life to be worried and troubled by female rows and disturbances—and, if you cannot make up your mind to swallow your pride and knock under, you will have to find out some other way of eating bread, whether of idleness or the reverse."

With the scowl that clouded his face whenever he was angry he looked at Grace, resolutely keeping his face away from Margaret, whose glance had a strange influence over him, and, pushing back his chair, he rose and walked out of the room.

Grace rose also. She was pale and defiant, not in the mood to tolerate even Margaret's caresses, she went to their own room; and, chilly though it was, she threw open the window, feeling as though she was suffocating. For the first time in all her life she had been spoken to rudely and insolently, and made to feel her dependence. Fate was indeed cruel: why was she left to the mercy of the world and Mr. Sandford? She would not stay with him—to be bullied and hectored and ordered about by him and his sister. She would go—but where?

The spasm of pain, of rage, and of indignation, surged through her—for the first time in all her life her vanity and her self-love had been sorely wounded. She was suffering acutely, and just at that moment when she was railing against her fate and every one connected with it a letter from her old school-mistress was put into her hands. She read it and shrank as she did so, the fond words in which so much affectionate flattery was mixed, struck her almost as though written in mockery, she was not to allow her present life of splendour to make her idle: she had such great gifts, she was to use them; she was not to allow vanity about her personal appearance to disfigure her mind; though queen-like in appearance she was to walk humbly, &c. &c.

She sat down, staring at her surroundings. What splendour was there in the four-post bed with its moreen curtains and the hideous carpet which was the exact opposite of all she had been taught to like? She did not pursue the thought, and it never dawned upon her that her great gifts and her queen-like grace were equally untrue. She accepted everything, and no one can blame her for so doing, but no greater cruelty could have been done her than the false standard and over-estimation of herself given her, so completely enshrouding her, that one day the awakening would be terrible to her.

Her sister's innocent pleasure over the letter and the hearty way in which she endorsed the flattery, made her once more a comfort to her, and once again she turned towards her and spoke.

"What are we to do about this woman, this sister, this Mrs. Dorriman, Madge?"

Margaret laughed softly.

"You will get the better of them all in time," she said; "you make every one do as you like; every one admires you so much; you are so clever, darling, and so beautiful. I am quite sure you will marry a duke."

Grace smiled; she was beginning to forget the wound she had received, and her sister's consolations were very sweet to her. She went to bathe her face and said, laughingly,

"Unfortunately no dukes are in sight here; and Margaret," she said suddenly, with a little shudder, "I feel as if in this dreary place no one will ever come."

"That is nonsense, darling," Margaret said quietly; "the prince always comes just when great distress is there, just when the princess needs him."

A turn in the cabbage-garden, revealed a few coloured leaves and some late flowers mixed with the "useful" vegetables; these were better than nothing, and the girls gathered them and then went through the town, attracting, of course, a good deal of attention in that out-of-the-way place, where few gentry ever came.

Grace went home not altogether unhappy. One or two clerks and several of the shop people had followed her and her sister with admiring glances, and, in the absence of all else, this was acceptable.

She returned to the house in good-humour, and walked more daintily than ever, meeting Mr. Sandford at the front door. He had come home earlier than usual to receive his sister. He was satisfied to see she was not sulky; if she had been he had made up his mind to put it down, and her too, at once.

Grace was, however, soon in her own room, getting ready for the encounter she dreaded. From the first Mrs. Dorriman should be taught the place she was to have; outwardly she might be mistress, order dinner, and keep the servants in their places, but, as regarded interference with her and Margaret, it was not to be, and she was thirsting to make this evident to her and settle it all at once.

As usual she was rehearsing the words and the manner in which she should speak when Mr. Sandford called her. He had his own notion of what was respectful to his sister, and before she had time to make a stand or say a word she had intended to say he was hurrying her downstairs with no very gentle grip upon her arm, having made up his mind that, as the proper thing to do was to go downstairs to the front door to receive Mrs. Dorriman, there she should go.

The carriage was not in sight even, but he had seen the train come in; and as Grace, standing beside him at the open hall-door, felt the cold wind blowing in upon her, she added this to the other wrongs, and almost hated him.