MAPLESTONE COURT was a pretty, spacious, and comfortable English home. The house was built of old red brick, which took a deep, rich colour in the rays of the western sun as it shone upon the wide porch and the many windows. Before the house there was a wide expanse of emerald turf, skirted by stately trees; and this lawn was not cut up into flower-beds, but rolled and shaven close, so that the dark shadows of the trees lay upon it in unbroken masses morning and evening.

To the right of the house the ground sloped gently down to what was called by courtesy a river, though it was but a little rippling stream, which had taken many curves and windings, and just below Maplestone had made for itself a deep basin, called by the same courtesy a lake.

Lake or pond, mere or tarn, this was a delightful refuge in sultry noon-tide. Here the water-lilies rocked themselves to sleep; here the plumy ferns hung over the crystal depths; and here the children of Maplestone Court brought their small craft of every shape and size to sail across from one side to the other of the lake, often to make shipwreck amongst the reeds and lilies, sometimes to sink in the clear water!

A rude wooden bridge crossed the stream just above the lake; and several seats, made of twisted boughs and ornamented with the large cones of the firs which shut in Maplestone at the back, were to be found here and there on the banks.

On one of these seats, on a hot August day, Salome was half-sitting, half-lying, looking dreamily down upon the water. Her wide straw hat was lying at her feet, a book with the leaves much crumpled was in the crown. One little foot hung down from the bench; the other was curled up under her in a fashion known and abhorred by all governesses and those who think the figure of a girl of fifteen is of greater importance than careless ease of position like Salome's at this moment.

The rounded cheek, which was pillowed by the little hand as Salome's head rested against the rough arm of the seat, was not rosy. It was pale, and all the colour about her was concentrated in the mass of tawny hair which was hanging over her shoulders, and varied in its hue from every shade of reddish brown to streaks of lighter gold colour.

It was wonderful hair, people said; and that was, perhaps, all that any one ever did see at all out of the common in Salome.

Quiet and thoughtful, liking retirement better than society, she often escaped out of the school-room to this favourite place, and dreamed her day-dreams to her heart's content.

Salome was the elder of two sisters, and she had one brother older than herself and three younger. Sorrow or change had as yet never come near Maplestone. The days went on in that serene happiness of which we are none of us conscious till it is over. When we hear the rustle of the angels' wings, then we know they are leaving us for ever, and when with us we had not discerned their presence.

Salome roused herself at last, picked up her hat and book, and uncurling herself from her position, stood up and listened. "Carriage wheels in the drive," she said to herself. "I suppose it is nearly luncheon time. I hope no stupid people are coming; that's all. I hate—"

Salome's meditations were broken off here; for a boy of thirteen or fourteen came clattering over the wooden bridge and took a flying leap down into the hollow, and exclaimed, "The bell will ring directly. Make haste, Sal; you are all in a tangle as usual. And won't Miss Barnes be angry? There is the book she has been hunting all over the place for; and the cover is in rags and tatters, and no mistake!"

Salome looked ruefully at the book, a French story by Madame PressensÉ which has delighted many children in its day and generation.

"'L'Institutrice' does not belong to Miss Barnes," Salome said; "it is Ada's. Why should she be in such a fuss? and Ada won't mind."

"Well, come on," Reginald said; "and don't put out every one by being late."

"Who is come?" Salome asked, as the brother and sister walked towards the house together. "Who came in the carriage just now?"

"It was only father. Mr. Stone brought him back from Fairchester in his brougham."

"Father!" Salome exclaimed. "How very odd! And why did Mr. Stone drive him home?"

The sound of the bell stopped any reply from Reginald; and Salome, being obliged to go up to her room to give her hair a superficial combing, and her hands a hasty dip in water, entered the dining-room just as the whole party were assembled.

Mrs. Wilton always lunched with the children at one o'clock, but to-day her place at the head of the table was taken by Miss Barnes.

"Where is mother?" was Salome's instant inquiry.

"You are very late, as usual, Salome," was Miss Barnes's rejoinder; it could not be called a reply.

"I asked where mother was. Do you know, Ada?"

Ada, a pretty, fair girl of fifteen, fresh as a rose, trim as a daisy, without an imperfection of any kind in her looks or in her dress, said, "Father wanted her, I believe;" while Salome, half satisfied, turned to her eldest brother Raymond.

"Is anything the matter, Ray?"

"I am sure I don't know," he answered carelessly. "There's something the matter with this soup—it's beastly."

"Raymond!" Ada exclaimed reprovingly, "pray, don't be so rude," as Raymond pushed away his plate, and, pulling another towards him, attacked some cutlets with tomatoes.

"The cooking is fifty times better at old Birch's," the young Etonian growled. "I can't think how mother can put up with that lazy Mrs. Porson."

"I say," said Reginald, "don't grumble at your bread and butter because it is not just to your mind."

"Shut up, will you," said Raymond, "and don't be cheeky."

And now the two little boys of eight and nine began to chime in with eager inquiries as to whether Raymond would help them with their tableaux, which were to be got up for their double birthday on the 1st of August. For Carl and Hans were both born on the same day of the month, Hans always affirming that he came to keep Carl's first birthday.

"Tableaux at this time of year; what folly! I shall be gone off in Strangway's yacht by then, you little duffer."

"I'll help you," Reginald said. "We'll have the tableaux Black Prince, Joan of Arc, and Mother Hubbard, if mother will lend us the finery, and Sal will advise us what to do."

"Oh, mother says we may have the tableaux. She says Shakespeare acted out of doors. We want to have them in the house by the lake, as a surprise, and bring in the lake," exclaimed Carl. "If Thursday is a day like to-day, it will be jolly. And, Ada, you said you'd write the invitations, didn't you?—the Holmes, and the De Brettes, and the Carruthers, Ada."

Ada, thus appealed to, smiled, and said, "We'll see."

"I have got some pink paper," Carl vociferated. "Nurse gave it to me. She bought it at her nephew's shop in Fairchester. It is just fit for invitations."

"Oh no; that would be fearfully vulgar!" said Ada. "Pink paper!"

Poor Carl was extinguished, and began to eat his rice-pudding in large mouthfuls.

All this time Miss Barnes had not spoken, and Salome watched her face anxiously. Yet she dared not question her, though she felt convinced Miss Barnes knew more than any of them about their mother's non-appearance and their father's unusual return from Fairchester in Mr. Stone's carriage. Mr. Stone was the doctor; and though Salome tried to persuade herself Mr. Stone's carriage had probably been at her father's office, and perhaps having a patient to see out in their direction, Mr. Wilton had accepted the offer of a drive homewards, and that Mr. Stone being a doctor had nothing to do with it, she was but half satisfied with her own self-deception.

The dining-room at Maplestone Court was like all the other rooms—a room suggestive of home and comfort. The three large windows, to-day thrown wide open, looked out on the lawn, and beyond to quiet meadows and copses skirted in the far distance by a range of hills, seen through the haze of the summer day blue and indistinct. Within, there were some fine pictures; and the wide dining-table was decorated with flowers—for of flowers there were plenty at Maplestone. If banished from the front of the house, they had their revenge in the dear old-fashioned kitchen-garden—a garden where beds for cutting were filled with every coloured geranium and verbena and calceolaria; a garden which seemed an enclosure of sweets and perfumes, where the wall-fruit hung in peerless beauty, and a large green-house, of the type of past days, was the shelter of a vine so luxuriant in its growth and so marvellous in its produce, that Maplestone grapes continually carried off the prize at the flower and fruit shows of the neighbourhood.

The children gathered round that pretty table—which, in spite of Raymond's dissatisfaction, was always well supplied with all that could please the taste—were singularly ignorant of whence all their good things came. They had all been born at Maplestone. They took it and all its comforts as a matter of course. Till Raymond went to Eton they had none of them concerned themselves much about what others had or had not. Raymond, the eldest son, had been the most indulged, the least contradicted, and had an enormous idea of his own importance.

He was very handsome, but by no means clever. He had no higher aim than to lounge through life with as little trouble to himself as possible; and now, at seventeen, when asked if he meant to turn his mind to any profession, he would say, "Oh, I may scrape through the militia, and get a commission; but I don't bother about it."

A naturally selfish disposition, he was altogether unconscious of it. He had spent a great deal of money at Eton; he had wasted a great deal of time. He cared nothing about Latin and Greek, still less about Euclid. If his clothes were well made, and he could get all Lord Clement Henshaw got, and the Marquis of Stonyshire's nephew, he was content. But as to a thought of his responsibility as his father's eldest son, or any idea beyond the present moment, he had nothing of the kind. Of late he had grown arrogant and self-asserting at home; and the holidays, when Reginald came rushing in with joyous gladness from Rugby, were by no means unmixed pleasures to the other children, by reason of Raymond's return from Eton. Reginald was Salome's especial friend. Ada, in her pretty completeness, stood somewhat alone. She was so "provokingly perfect," Reginald said. No one ever caught Ada out; and it was so dull.

The little boys were under Miss Barnes's care; but Carl was to go to a preparatory school at Christmas. The very idea of such a separation set "Hans's water-works flowing," Reginald said; so the great event was only generally understood, and not talked about.

Just as Miss Barnes had risen from the table, saying, "Your grace, Hans," and just as little Hans had lifted his voice in childish treble, with the accustomed form used by all his predecessors in the Wilton family, the door opened, and Mrs. Wilton came in.

Salome went to her impetuously. "Have you had no luncheon, mother? Let me ring for some hot soup."

Mrs. Wilton took the chair Miss Barnes vacated, and saying in a low voice to her, "Take the children away," she declined anything but a glass of wine and a biscuit, and scarcely seemed to notice the children's eager—

"We may have the tableaux, mother, mayn't we? and Ada may write the notes for our birthday party?"

"Yes, darlings, yes. Run away now."

The two little boys scampered off, and Ada, stooping over her mother, kissed her, and said,—

"You look so tired, mother!"

Raymond and Reginald were still lingering at the bottom of the table, when Raymond said,—

"I suppose I can take out Captain this afternoon? I want to ride over to St. John's."

"Your father—" Mrs. Wilton got no further; and Salome said,—

"Father does not like Captain to be ridden carelessly, Raymond. You had better take old Bess."

"Thank you!" was Raymond's retort; "I did not ask for your opinion, Miss Sal."

Then Raymond left the room, and Reginald, seeing his mother did not wish to be troubled with questions, followed him.

Ada with another kiss, as she leaned over the back of her mother's chair, also went away, and Salome and her mother were left to themselves.

Salome knew something was wrong—very wrong, but her lips refused to form the words she longed to utter. Mrs. Wilton, finding they were alone together, covered her face with her hand, and then in a broken whisper said,—

"Your father is in great trouble, Salome."

"Is he ill?" the girl asked quietly.

"Ill, and most miserable. He thinks he is ruined."

"I don't understand, mother. How is he ruined?"

"The great Norwegian firm with which he traded has failed; and as if that were not enough, rumours are floating to-day that the Central Bank is likely to stop payment to-morrow."

Salome's bewildered expression struck her mother as pathetic. "She is only a child," she was saying to herself; "she does not take it in."

Presently Salome said with a deep-drawn breath, "Has father all his money in the bank, then?"

"All his private fortune; and then, if he has to stop trading as a timber merchant, the loss will be—simply ruin, Salome."

"This house is ours, isn't it?" the girl asked.

"My dear child, ours no longer if it has to be sold to meet the debts—the liabilities, as they are called. But do not say a word to any one to-day. There is just this chance, the rumours about the Central Bank may be false. Your father's partners incline to the hope that it may prove so; but I have no hope, no hope. Oh, your father's face of misery is more than I can bear! At his age, to have everything taken from him!"

"Not everything, mother; he has got you."

"What am I? A poor weak woman, never strong, never fitted for much exertion. What will become of the children?"

"I will do my best, mother," Salome said. "I will do all I can."

"You, Salome! My dear," said her mother sadly, "what could you do?"

"Take care of the boys; teach the little ones; save the expense of a governess; help you to do without so many servants," Salome said promptly.

"Ah, Salome, we shall want no servants, for we shall have no home. Maplestone must be sold, and all the dear old pictures;—but I must not go over this part of it. Mr. Stone happened to meet your father in Fairchester, and thought him looking so ill that he brought him home. He told me he was very anxious about him, and I was by no means to allow him to go back to Fairchester to-day. I heard him order the dog-cart round at three o'clock, and he ought not to go; yet how can I stop him?"

"May I go and see father?" Salome asked. "I will be very quiet, and not worry him."

"I hardly know. He said none of the children were to be told to-day—that I was to keep the trouble from you; that is why I dared not come in to luncheon. And the De Brettes and Fergusons dine here to-night. They ought to be put off; but he won't hear of it. Miss Barnes saw Mr. Stone leading your father across the hall. I was obliged to tell her about it; but she said she would keep it from the children."

"I am not a child now, mother," Salome said; "I am nearly sixteen. Somehow," and her voice faltered—"somehow I don't feel as if I should ever be a child any more if—If you come upstairs and lie down in your sitting-room, I will go and see father, and try to persuade him not to go to Fairchester. Now, mother."

For the first time in her life Salome felt that she must think for others as well as for herself. It was a sudden awakening. Long years after, she recalled that last dreamy noon-tide by the little lake, and all her visions and illusions: the fairy web of youthful weaving, which some of us remember, was so delicious and so sweet. Now, when she had drawn down the venetian blinds and left her mother to rest, if rest were possible, she paused before she could summon courage to turn to the library and see the father she so dearly loved in his sore trouble.