Although the little house in Collingwood Terrace had not, perhaps, fully justified Martin's cheery prophecy that it would turn out an "awfully jolly little place when once they got used to it," yet there, as elsewhere, peace, goodwill, order, and cleanliness mitigated what was mean and unpleasant. Mrs. Bransby's love of personal adornment rested on a better basis than vanity, although she was, doubtless, no more free from vanity than many a plainer woman. She had an artistic pleasure in beauty and elegance, and an objection to sluttishness in all its Protean forms, which might almost be described as the moral sense applied to material things. Her delicate taste suffered, of course, from much that surrounded her in the squeezed little suburban house. But, far from sinking into a helpless slattern, according to the picture of her painted by Mrs. Dormer-Smith's commonplace fancy, she exerted herself to the utmost to make a pleasant and cheerful home for her children. Her life was one of real toil, although many well-meaning ladies of the Dormer-Smith type would have looked with suspicion on the care Mrs. Bransby took of her hands, and would have been able to sympathize more thoroughly with her troubles if her collars and cuffs had occasionally shown a crease or a stain.

Mr. Rivers's room had been prepared with the most solicitous care. It was a labour of love with all the family. Martin and his sister Ethel did good work, and even the younger children insisted on "helping," to the irreparable damage of their pinafores, and temporary eclipse of their rosy faces by dust and blacklead. The young ones were elated by the prospect of seeing their playfellow Owen once again; Martin relied on his assistance to persuade Mrs. Bransby that he (Martin) should and could earn something; and even Mrs. Bransby could not help building on Owen's arrival to bring some amelioration into her life beyond the substantial assistance of his weekly payments.

He arrived in the evening, and was received by the children with enthusiasm, and by Mrs. Bransby with an effort to be calm and cheerful, and to suppress her tears, which touched him greatly, seeing her, as he did for the first time, in her widow's garb. He was touched, too, by her almost humble anxiety that he should be content with the accommodation provided for him, and earnestly assured her that he considered himself luxuriously lodged.

And, indeed, for himself he was more than satisfied; but he could not help contrasting this mean little house with Mrs. Bransby's beautiful home in Oldchester, and he found it singularly painful to see her in these altered circumstances. In this respect, as in so many others, his feeling differed as widely as possible from Theodore's. For Theodore, although fastidious and exacting as to all that regarded his own comfort, sincerely considered his step-mother's home to be in all respects quite good enough for her, and had privately taxed her with insensibility and ingratitude for showing so little satisfaction in it.

All the family, including Phoebe, who grinned a recognition from the top of the kitchen stairs, agreed in declaring Owen to be looking remarkably well. He was somewhat browned by the Spanish sunshine, and he had an indefinable air of bright hopefulness. In Oldchester he used to look more dreamy.

"It is business which is grinding my faculties to a fine edge," he answered laughingly, when Mrs. Bransby made some remark to the above effect. "I shall become quite dangerously sharp if I go on at this rate."

"I don't think you look at all sharp," replied Mrs. Bransby gently.

Whereupon Martin told his mother that she was not polite; and Bobby and Billy giggled; and they all sat down to their evening meal very cheerfully.

When the table was cleared, and the younger children had gone away to bed under Ethel's superintendence, Mrs. Bransby said, "You smoke, do you not, Mr. Rivers?"

"Not here, in your sitting-room."

"Oh, pray do! It does not annoy me in the least."

Owen hesitated, and Martin thereupon put in his word. "Mother does not mind it, really. Not decent, human kind of tobacco such as gentlemen use. That beast, old Bucher, used to smoke a great pipe that smelt like double-distilled essence of public-house tap-rooms."

"Well, a cigarette, if I may," said Owen, pulling out his case. Then, drawing the only comfortable easy-chair in the room towards the fireside, he asked, "Is that where you like to have it?"

"That is your chair," said Mrs. Bransby timidly.

"Good Heavens!" exclaimed Owen, genuinely shocked, "what have I done to make you suppose I could possibly be capable of taking your seat?"

He gently took her hand and led her to the chair. Then, looking round the little parlour, he spied a footstool, which he placed beneath her feet. As he looked up from doing so, he saw her sweet pale face, with the delicate curves of the mouth twitching nervously in an endeavour to smile, and the soft dark eyes full of tears. "You must not spoil me in this fashion," she began. But the attempt to speak was too much for her. She broke down, and covered her face with her trembling hands.

Martin instantly crossed the room, and stood close beside her, placing one arm round her shoulders, and turning away from Owen, so as to fence his mother in. The boy's protecting attitude was pathetically eloquent. And so was the way in which his mother presently laid her head down upon his shoulder. They remained thus for a little while. Owen stood by the fire with his elbow on the mantelpiece, and his forehead resting on his hand. And all three were silent.

At length, when Martin felt that his mother was no longer trembling, and that her sobs were subsiding, he looked round and said, "Mother's upset by being treated properly. No wonder! It's like meeting with a white man after living among cannibals. If you had ever seen that beast Bucher, you'd understand it."

"Shall I go away?" asked Owen.

Mrs. Bransby quickly held out one hand entreatingly, while she dried her eyes with the other. "Please stay!" she said. "And please light your cigarette! And please draw your chair near the fire, and make yourself as comfortable—or as little uncomfortable—as you can! Forgive me. I do not often break down in this way; do I, Martin?"

"No," answered Martin, moving the lamp so as to throw his mother's tear-stained face into shadow, and then squeezing his own chair into the corner beside hers, "no; you were cheerful enough with Bucher. Well, of course one had either to take Bucher from the ludicrous side, or else shoot him through the head, and have done with him!"

"I see," said Owen, nodding, and not sorry to hide his own emotion under cover of a joke. "And Mrs. Bransby was unable to make up her mind to justifiably homicide him?"

"Yes. He was a beast, though, and no mistake! Phoebe was in such a rage with him once, that she threatened to throw a hot batter-pudding at his head. I'm sorry now she didn't," added Martin, with pensive regret.

Then they talked quietly. Mrs. Bransby, with womanly tact, led Owen to speak about himself and his prospects. There was little to tell in the way of incident. He had been working steadily, and did not dislike his work. And he had been well contented with his treatment by Mr. Bragg. Mr. Bragg had made him an offer to send him, in the spring, to Buenos Ayres. It might be an opening to fortune.

"I suppose you will go? Of course, you will go!" said Mrs. Bransby.

She could not help her voice and her face betraying some disappointment. They did not, however, betray all she felt; for the prospect of Owen's going away again so soon sent a desolate chill to her heart. Owen looked at her quickly, and then as quickly looked away and tossed the end of his cigarette into the fire, before lighting another.

"I don't know," he answered, bending down over the flame; "it will require some consideration. I believe the alternative is open to me of remaining in Mr. Bragg's employment in England. Anyway, there is time enough before I need decide—several months, I hope."

Mrs. Bransby breathed a low sigh of relief; then she said, in a perceptibly more cheerful tone, "It seems so odd to think of you writing business letters, and making up accounts, and being altogether turned into a—a——"

"A clerk."

"No; not precisely that. You are Mr. Bragg's secretary, are you not?"

"What I am aiming at—what I hope to be—is a clerk, you know. If I called myself a field marshal or an archbishop it would not alter the fact; but it does seem odd to me, too, when I think of it. Better luck than I deserve, as my shrewd old friend Mrs. Dobbs said to me."

"Talking of Mrs. Dobbs, May Cheffington came to see me here."

Owen had heard regularly from May every week; he carried her last letter in his breast-pocket at that moment (not the note which she had posted herself—that had not yet reached Collingwood Terrace), so that he was not starving for news of her. Nevertheless, he felt a wild temptation to cry out, "Tell me about her! Talk of nothing else!" But he answered composedly, "That was quite right; she ought, of course, to have come to see you."

"She only came once," observed Martin.

"That was not her fault," said his mother. "She could not, as I told you all, make frequent journeys here—she could not command her time or her aunt's servants; she goes out a great deal."

"Her aunt lives for the world, you see," said Owen apologetically.

"Oh, there is no reason why May should not enjoy her youth and all her advantages," answered Mrs. Bransby softly; "she is a very sweet, lovable creature—much too good for——" Mrs. Bransby here checked herself, and stopped abruptly.

"Oh, mother! that's all bosh!" cried Martin, flushing hotly. "I mean that notion of yours. Now, I ask you, Mr. Rivers, is it likely that May Cheffington would think of marrying Theodore? Ah! you may well look flabbergasted! Anybody would who knew them both. You see, mother, Mr. Rivers takes it just as I did. You don't think it likely, do you, Mr. Rivers?"

Owen had recovered from the first startling effect of hearing those two names coupled together; but he was inwardly raging and lavishing a variety of the most unparliamentary epithets on Theodore.

"If you ask my candid opinion, I don't think it likely," he answered curtly.

"Of course not!" exclaimed the boy. "It's only Theodore's bounce; I told mother so."

"Why, you don't mean that Bransby has the confounded impudence to say——"

"No, no," interposed Mrs. Bransby. "Don't let us exaggerate. Theodore has never made any explicit statement on the subject. But he meets May very frequently in society. He is constantly invited by Mrs. Dormer-Smith. They are thrown a great deal together. May has evidently become much more kind and gracious to him of late—for I remember when she used positively to run away from him!—and as for him, he is as much attached to her as he can be to any human being. I do believe that."

"Attached your granny!" cried Martin, apparently unable to find a polite phrase strong enough to convey his deep disdain. "Theodore is much attached to number one, and that's about the beginning and the end of his attachments!"

"Hush, Martin," said his mother severely. "You are talking of what you don't understand. And you know how much I dislike to hear you use that tone about—your brother."

She brought out the word "brother" with an obvious effort. In truth, she had a repugnance to speaking, or even thinking, of Theodore as her children's brother. But it was a repugnance for which she blamed herself.

"I think," she added, "that you had better go to bed, Martin."

The boy rose with an instant obedience, which had not always characterized him in the happy Oldchester days, and bent over his mother to kiss her.

"I'm very sorry. I did not mean to vex you, mother," he whispered. "You're not angry with me, are you?"

"I can't be angry with you, my darling boy. But I must do my duty. You know he would say, I was right to correct you."

Martin lifted up his face cheerfully, with the happy elasticity of boyish spirits. "All right, mother. Good night. Good night, Mr. Rivers."

"Good night, old fellow," responded Owen, grasping the boy's hand heartily. He felt very strongly in sympathy with Martin, just then.

Martin lingered. "May I ask just one thing, mother?" he said wistfully.

"You know we agreed not to tease Mr. Rivers with our affairs immediately on his arrival, Martin," replied his mother. Then, unable to resist his pleading face, she said, "If it really is only one question, perhaps Mr. Rivers would not mind——?"

"What is it you want to know, Martin? Speak out," said Owen.

"It's about the question I asked in my letter," replied Martin, blushing and eager. "Don't you think I ought to try and help mother? And don't you think I might have a chance of earning something?"

"That's two questions," said Owen, with a smile. "But I'll answer them both. To number one, yes, undoubtedly. To number two, perhaps; but we must have patience."

"There, mother!" cried Martin, triumphantly turning his glowing face and sparkling eyes towards her. Then he shut the door, and rushed upstairs: his round young cheeks dimpled with smiles, and his heart so full of joyous hopes, that he was impelled to find some vent for his overflowing spirits by hurling his bolster at Bobby and Billy, who were sitting up in bed, broad awake. Thereupon there ensued smothered sounds of scuffling and laughter, mingled with the occasional thud of a bolster against the wall; until Phoebe, sharply rapping at the door, announced that unless Mr. Martin was in bed in two minutes, she would take away the light, and leave him to undress in the dark.

When the widow was alone with Owen she began to pour forth the praises of her eldest boy. She hoped Mr. Rivers did not think her selfish in letting the boy share so much of her cares and anxieties. But although only a child in years he was so helpful, so loving, so sensible—had such a manly desire to shield her and spare her! And then, after asking Owen's advice about the boy, she added, naÏvely—

"Only, please, don't advise me to make a drudge of him. He is so clever, he ought to be educated. His dear father looked forward to his doing so well at school and college."

"If I am to advise, really," said Owen, "I ought first to understand the state of the case with as much accuracy as possible."

Mrs. Bransby at once told him the details of her circumstances as succinctly as she could. There was a small sum secured to her, but so small as barely to suffice for finding them all in food. Theodore had made himself responsible for the rent during one twelvemonth. He had also (or so she had understood him) promised to send Martin to his old school for a couple of years. But it now appeared that his offer was limited to paying for Martin's being taught at a neighbouring day school of a very inferior kind. And even this seemed precarious.

"I thought at one time," said Mrs. Bransby, "that I might, perhaps, earn, a little money by teaching. But I must do what I can to educate Ethel and Enid and the younger boys until they get beyond me. I fear I could not find time to go out and give lessons, even if I succeeded in getting an engagement. So I am trying to get some sewing to do. I can use my needle, you know, while I hear Ethel say her French lesson, and make Bobby and Billy spell words of two syllables."

Poor Mrs. Bransby spoke with much diffidence of her plans and projects. She had a very humble opinion of her own powers, and was touchingly willing to be ruled and directed. Owen suggested that it might have been better for her to have remained in Oldchester, where she was among friends. But she answered that she had had scarcely any choice in the matter. It was Theodore who had decided that she was to remove to London. It was Theodore who had chosen that house for her. In the first days of her loss she had blindly accepted all Theodore's directions.

"Perhaps I was to blame," she said. "But I was so overwhelmed, and I felt so helpless; and it seemed right to listen to Theodore. But—although I never say a harsh word about him to strangers, nor to the children if I can help it—I cannot pretend to you, who know us all so well, that he is kind to us. Martin resents his behaviour very much. I do my best, but it is impossible to make my boy feel cordially towards his half-brother."

"Of course it is!" said Owen. Then he closed his lips. He would not trust himself to talk of Theodore at that moment.

It was a comfort to Mrs. Bransby to speak openly to a sympathizing listener, and one whom she could thoroughly trust. She talked on for a long time; and at length, looking at her watch, accused herself of selfishness in keeping Owen so long from the rest which he must need after his journey. As she returned the watch to her pocket, she said deprecatingly—

"Perhaps you think I ought not to possess so handsome a watch under the present circumstances? Theodore was quite displeased when he saw it, and said it ought to be sold. But, you see, I need some kind of watch; and this is an excellent time-keeper; and—and my dear husband gave it to me on the last birthday we spent together."

She turned away to hide the tears that brimmed up into her eyes; and, going to a little side table, lit her chamber candle.

Owen rose from his chair. "Look here, Mrs. Bransby," he said. "Of course we must have more talk together, and more time to consider matters; but it seems to me that Martin is right in wishing to earn something. Young as he is, it might be possible to find some employment for him which should bring in a weekly sum worth having. And as to his education—it has occurred to me that I could, at least, keep him from forgetting what he has learnt already; and, perhaps, coach him on a little further. An hour or two every evening, steadily occupied, would do a good deal. It would be a great pleasure to me to be able to do this small service for you. That is to say," he went on quickly, in order to check the outburst of thanks which trembled on her lips, "if you are good enough to allow me the advantage of continuing to occupy a room here. I hope you will be able to put up with me. I don't think that Phoebe will want to throw a hot batter-pudding at my head. But that may be my vanity! Good night. Don't say any more now, please. We will think it over on both sides. I will smoke one more cigarette, if I may, before I turn in."

He opened the door, and held it open for her. As she passed him, she paused an instant, and said in a low, trembling voice, "God bless you!"