'You will stay for the funeral, Mr. Clay?'

'It is my intention to do so.'

'Good. Being interested in the will, it may be agreeable to you to hear it read.'

'Am I interested?' inquired Austin, in some surprise.

'Why, of course you are,' replied Mr. Knapley, the legal gentleman with whom Austin was speaking, and who had the conduct of Mrs. Thornimett's affairs. 'Did you never know that you were a considerable legatee?'

'I did not,' said Austin. 'Some years ago—it was at the death of Mr. Thornimett—Mrs. Thornimett hinted to me that I might be the better some time for a trifle from her. But she has never alluded to it since: and I have not reckoned upon it.'

'Then I can tell you—though it is revealing secrets beforehand—that you are the better to the tune of two thousand pounds.'

'Two thousand pounds!' uttered Austin, in sheer amazement. 'How came she to leave me so much as that?'

'Do you quarrel with it, young sir?'

'No, indeed: I feel all possible gratitude. But I am surprised, nevertheless.'

'She was a clever, clear-sighted woman, was Mrs. Thornimett,' observed the lawyer. 'I'll tell you about it—how it is you come to have so much. When I was taking directions for Mr. Thornimett's will—more than ten years back now—a discussion arose between him and his wife as to the propriety of leaving a sum of money to Austin Clay. A thousand pounds was the amount named. Mr. Thornimett was for leaving you in his wife's hands, to let her bequeath it to you at her death; Mrs. Thornimett wished it should be left to you then, in the will I was about to make, that you might inherit it on the demise of Mr. Thornimett. He took his own course, and did not leave it, as you are aware.'

'I did not expect him to leave me anything,' interrupted Austin.

'My young friend, if you break in with these remarks, I shall not get to the end of my story. After her husband's burial, Mrs. Thornimett spoke to me. "I particularly wished the thousand pounds left now to Austin Clay," she said, "and I shall appropriate it to him at once." "Appropriate it in what manner?" I asked her. "I should like to put it out to interest, that it may be accumulating for him," she replied, "so that at my death he may receive both principal and interest." "Then, if you live as long as it is to be hoped you will, madam, you may be bequeathing him two thousand pounds instead of one," I observed to her. "Mr. Knapley," was her answer, "if I choose to bequeath him three, it is my own money that I do it with; and I am responsible to no one." She had taken my remark to be one of remonstrance, you see, in which spirit it was not made: had Mrs. Thornimett chosen to leave you the whole of her money she had been welcome to do it for me. "Can you help me to a safe investment for him?" she resumed; and I promised to look about for it. The long and the short of it is, Mr. Clay, that I found both a safe and a profitable investment, and the one thousand pounds has swollen itself into two—as you will hear when the will is read.'

'I am truly obliged for her kindness, and for the trouble you have taken,' exclaimed Austin, with a glowing colour. 'I never thought to get rich all at once.'

'You only be prudent and take care of it,' said Mr. Knapley. 'Be as wise in its use as I and Mrs. Thornimett have been. It is the best advice I can give you.'

'It is good advice, I know, and I thank you for it,' warmly responded Austin.

'Ay. I can tell you that less than two thousand pounds has laid the foundation of many a great fortune.'

To a young man whose salary is only two hundred a year, the unexpected accession to two thousand pounds, hard cash, seems like a great fortune. Not that Austin Clay cared so very much for a 'great fortune' in itself; but he certainly did hope to achieve a competency, and to this end he made the best use of the talents bestowed upon him. He was not ambitious to die 'worth a million;' he had the rare good sense to know that excess of means cannot bring excess of happiness. The richest man on earth cannot eat two dinners a day, or wear two coats at a time, or sit two thoroughbred horses at once, or sleep on two beds. To some, riches are a source of continual trouble. Unless rightly used, they cannot draw a man to heaven, or help him on his road thither. Austin Clay's ambition lay in becoming a powerful man of business; such as were the Messrs. Hunter. He would like to have men under him, of whom he should be the master; not to control them with an iron hand, to grind them to the dust, to hold them at a haughty distance, as if they were of one species of humanity and he of another. No; he would hold intact their relative positions of master and servant—none more strictly than he; but he would be their considerate friend, their firm advocate, regardful ever of their interests as he was of his own. He would like to have capital sufficient for all necessary business operations, that he might fulfil every obligation justly and honourably: so far, money would be welcome to Austin. Very welcome did the two thousand pounds sound in his ears, for they might be the stepping-stone to this. Not to the 'great fortune' talked of by Mr. Knapley, who avowed freely his respect for millionaires: he did not care for that. They might also be a stepping-stone to something else—the very thought of which caused his face to glow and his veins to tingle—the winning of Florence Hunter. That he would win her, Austin fully believed now.

On the day previous to the funeral, in walking through the streets of Ketterford, Austin found himself suddenly seized by the shoulder. A window had been thrown open, and a fair arm (to speak with the gallantry due to the sex in general, rather than to that one arm in particular) was pushed out and laid upon him. His captor was Miss Gwinn.

'Come in,' she briefly said.

Austin would have been better pleased to avoid her, but as she had thus summarily caught him, there was no help for it: to enter into a battle of contention with her might be productive of neither honour nor profit. He entered her sitting-room, and she motioned him to a chair.

'So you did not intend to call upon me during your stay in Ketterford, Austin Clay?'

'The melancholy occasion on which I am here precludes much visiting,' was his guarded reply. 'And my sojourn will be a short one.'

'Don't be a hypocrite, young man, and use those unmeaning words. "Melancholy occasion!" What did you care for Mrs. Thornimett, that her death should make you "melancholy?"'

'Mrs. Thornimett was my dear and valued friend,' he returned, with an emotion born of anger. 'There are few, living, whom I would not rather have spared. I shall never cease to regret the not having arrived in time to see her before she died.'

Miss Gwinn peered at him from her keen eyes, as if seeking to know whether this was false or true. Possibly she decided in favour of the latter, for her face somewhat relaxed its sternness. 'What has Dr. Bevary told you of me and of my affairs?' she rejoined, passing abruptly to another subject.

'Not anything,' replied Austin. He did not lift his eyes, and a scarlet flush dyed his brow as he spoke; nevertheless it was the strict truth. Miss Gwinn noted the signs of consciousness.

'You can equivocate, I see.'

'Pardon me. I have not equivocated to you. Dr. Bevary has disclosed nothing; he has never spoken to me of your affairs. Why should he, Miss Gwinn?'

'Your face told a different tale.'

'It did not tell an untruth, at any rate,' he said, with some hauteur.

'Do you never see Dr. Bevary?'

'I see him sometimes.'

'At the house of Mr. Hunter, I presume. How is she?'

Again the flush, whatever may have called it up, crimsoned Austin Clay's brow. 'I do not know of whom you speak,' he coldly said.

'Of Mrs. Hunter.'

'She is in ill-health.'

'Ill to be in danger of her life? I hear so.'

'It may be. I cannot say.'

'Do you know, Austin Clay, that I have a long, long account to settle with you?' she resumed, after a pause: 'years and years have elapsed since, and I have never called upon you for it. Why should I?' she added, relapsing into a dreamy mood, and speaking to herself rather than to Austin; 'the mischief was done, and could not be recalled. I once addressed a brief note to you at the office of the Messrs. Hunter, requesting you to give a letter, enclosed in it, to my brother. Why did you not?'

Austin was silent. He retained only too vivid a remembrance of the fact.

'Why did you not give it him, I ask?'

'I could not give it him, Miss Gwinn. When your letter reached me, your brother had already been at the office of the Messrs. Hunter, and was then on his road back to Ketterford. The enclosure was burnt unopened.'

'Ay!' she passionately uttered, throwing her arms upwards in mental pain, as Austin had seen her do in the days gone by, and holding commune with herself, regardless of his presence, 'such has been my fate through life. Thwarted, thwarted on all sides. For years and years I had lived but in the hope of finding him; the hope of it kept life in me: and when the time came, and I did find him, and was entering upon my revenge, then this brother of mine, who has been the second bane of my existence, stepped in and reaped the benefit. It was my fault. Why, in my exultation, did I tell him the man was found? Did I not know enough of his avarice, his needs, to have made sure that he would turn it to his own account? Why,' she continued, battling with her hands as at some invisible adversary, 'was I born with this strong principle of justice within me? Why, because he stepped in with his false claims and drew gold—a fortune—of the man, did I deem it a reason for dropping my revenge?—for letting it rest in abeyance? In abeyance it is still; and its unsatisfied claims are wearing out my heart and my life——'

'Miss Gwinn,' interrupted Austin, at length, 'I fancy you forget that I am present. Your family affairs have nothing to do with me, and I would prefer not to hear anything about them. I will wish you good day.'

'True. They have nothing to do with you. I know not why I spoke before you, save that your sight angers me.'

'Why so?' Austin could not forbear asking.

'Because you live on terms of friendship with that man. You are as his right hand in business; you are a welcome guest at his house; you regard and respect the house's mistress. Boy! but that she has not wilfully injured me; but that she is the sister of Dr. Bevary, I should——'

'I cannot listen to any discussion involving the name of Hunter,' spoke Austin, in a repellant, resolute tone, the colour again flaming in his cheeks. 'Allow me to bid you good day.'

'Stay,' she resumed, in a softer tone, 'it is not with you personally that I am angry——'

An interruption came in the person of Lawyer Gwinn. He entered the room without his coat, a pen behind each ear, and a dirty straw hat on his head. It was probably his office attire in warm weather.

'I thought I heard a strange voice. How do you do, Mr. Clay?' he exclaimed, with much suavity.

Austin bowed. He said something to the effect that he was on the point of departing, and retreated to the door, bowing his final farewell to Miss Gwinn. Mr. Gwinn followed.

'Ketterford will have to congratulate you, Mr. Clay,' he said. 'I understand you inherit a very handsome sum from Mrs. Thornimett.'

'Indeed!' frigidly replied Austin. 'Mrs. Thornimett's will is not yet read. But Ketterford always knows everybody's business better than its own.'

'Look you, my dear Mr. Clay,' said the lawyer, holding him by the button-hole. 'Should you require a most advantageous investment for your money—one that will turn you in cent. per cent. and no risk—I can help you to one. Should your inheritance be of the value of a thousand pounds, and you would like to double it—as all men, of course, do like—just trust it to me; I have the very thing now open.'

Austin shook himself free—rather too much in the manner that he might have shaken himself from a serpent. 'Whether my inheritance may be of the value of one thousand pounds or of ten thousand, Mr. Gwinn, I shall not require your services in the disposal of it. Good morning.'

The lawyer looked after him as he strode away. 'So, you carry it with a high hand to me, do you, my brave gentleman! with your vain person, and your fine clothes, and your imperious manner! Take you care! I hold your master under my thumb; I may next hold you!'

'The vile hypocrite!' ejaculated Austin to himself, walking all the faster to leave the lawyer's house behind him. 'She is bad enough, with her hankering after revenge, and her fits of passion; but she is an angel of light compared to him. Heaven help Mr. Hunter! It would have been sufficient to have had her to fight, but to have him! Ay, Heaven help him!'

'How d'ye do, Mr. Clay?'

Austin returned the nod of the passing acquaintance, and continued his way, his thoughts reverting to Miss Gwinn.

'Poor thing! there are times when I pity her! Incomprehensible as the story is to me, I can feel compassion; for it was a heavy wrong done her, looking at it in the best light. She is not all bad; but for the wrong, and for her evil temper, she might have been different. There is something good in the hint I gathered now from her lips, if it be true—that she suffered her own revenge to drop into abeyance, because her brother had pursued Mr. Hunter to drain money from him: she would not go upon him in both ways. Yes, there was something in it both noble and generous, if those terms can ever be applied to——'

'Austin Clay, I am sure! How are you?'

Austin resigned his hand to the new comer, who claimed it. His thoughts could not be his own to-day.

The funeral of Mrs. Thornimett took place. Her mortal remains were laid beside her husband, there to repose peacefully until the last trump shall sound. On the return of the mourners to the house, the will was read, and Austin found himself the undoubted possessor of two thousand pounds. Several little treasures, in the shape of books, drawings, and home knicknacks, were also left to him. He saw after the packing of these, and the day following the funeral he returned to London.

It was evening when he arrived; and he proceeded without delay to the house of Mr. Hunter—ostensibly to report himself, really to obtain a sight of Florence, for which his tired heart was yearning. The drawing-room was lighted up, by which he judged that they had friends with them. Mr. Hunter met him in the hall: never did a visitor's knock sound at his door but Mr. Hunter, in his nervous restlessness, strove to watch who it might be that entered. Seeing Austin, his face acquired a shade of brightness, and he came forward with an outstretched hand.

'But you have visitors,' Austin said, when greetings were over, and Mr. Hunter was drawing him towards the stairs. He wore deep mourning, but was not in evening dress.

'As if anybody will care for the cut of your coat!' cried Mr. Hunter. 'There's Mrs. Hunter wrapped up in a woollen shawl.'

The room was gay with light and dress, with many voices, and with music. Florence was seated at the piano, playing, and singing in a glee with others. Austin, silently greeting those whom he knew as he passed, made his way to Mrs. Hunter. She was wrapped in a warm shawl, as her husband had said; but she appeared better than usual.

'I am so glad to see you looking well,' Austin whispered, his earnest tone betraying deep feeling.

'And I am glad to see you here again,' she replied, smiling, as she held his hand. 'We have missed you, Austin. Yes, I feel better! but it is only a temporary improvement. So you have lost poor Mrs. Thornimett. She died before you could reach her.'

'She did,' replied Austin, with a grave face. 'I wish we could get transported to places, in case of necessity as quickly as the telegraph brings us news that we are wanted. A senseless and idle wish, you will say; but it would have served me in this case. She asked after me twice in her last half hour.'

'Austin,' breathed Mrs. Hunter, 'was it a happy death-bed? Was she ready to go?'

'Quite, quite,' he answered, a look of enthusiasm illumining his face. 'She had been ready long.'

'Then we need not mourn for her; rather praise God that she is taken. Oh, Austin, what a happy thing it must be for such to die! But you are young and hopeful; you cannot understand that, yet.'

So, Mrs. Hunter had learnt that great truth! Some years before, she had not so spoken to the wife of John Baxendale, when she was waiting in daily expectation of being called on her journey. It had come to her ere her time of trial—as the dying woman had told her it would.

The singing ceased, and in the movement which it occasioned in the room, Austin left Mrs. Hunter's side, and stood within the embrasure of the window, half hidden by the curtains. The air was pleasant on that warm summer night, and Florence, resigning her place at the instrument to some other lady, stole to the window to inhale its freshness. There she saw Austin. She had not heard him enter the room—did not know, in fact, that he was back from Ketterford.

'Oh!' she uttered, in the sudden revulsion of feeling that the sight brought to her, 'is it you?'

He quietly took her hands in his, and looked down at her. Had it been to save her life, she could not have helped betraying emotion.

'Are you glad to see me, Florence?' he softly whispered.

She coloured even to tears. Glad! The time might come when she should be able to tell him so; but that time was not yet.

'Mrs. Hunter is glad of my return,' he continued, in the same low tone, sweeter to her ear than all music. 'She says I have been missed. Is it so, Florence?'

'And what have you been doing?' asked Florence, not knowing in the least what she said in her confusion, as she left his question unanswered, and drew her hands away from him.

'I have not been doing much, save the seeing a dear old friend laid in the earth. You know that Mrs. Thornimett is dead. She died before I got there.'

'Papa told us that. He heard from you two or three times, I think. How you must regret it! But why did they not send for you in time?'

'It was only the last day that danger was apprehended,' replied Austin. 'She grew worse suddenly. You cannot think, Florence, how strangely this gaiety'—he half turned to the room—'contrasts with the scenes I have left: the holy calm of her death-chamber, the laying of her in the grave.'

'An unwelcome contrast, I am sure it must be.'

'It jars on the mind. All events, essentially of the world, let them be ever so necessary or useful, must do so, when contrasted with the solemn scenes of life's close. But how soon we forget those solemn scenes, and live in the world again!'

'Austin,' she gently whispered, 'I do not like to talk of death. It reminds me of the dread that is ever oppressing me.'

'She looks so much better as to surprise me,' was his answer, unconscious that it betrayed his undoubted cognisance of the 'dread' she spoke of.

'If it would but last!' sighed Florence. 'To prolong mamma's life, I think I would sacrifice mine.'

'No, you would not, Florence—in mercy to her. If called upon to lose her you would grow reconciled to it; to do so, is in the order of nature. She could not spare you.'

Florence believed that she never could grow reconciled to it: she often wondered how she should bear it when the time came. But there rose up before her now, as she spoke with Austin, one cheering promise, 'As thy day is, so shall thy strength be.'

'What should you say, if I tell you I have come into a fortune!' resumed Austin, in a lighter tone.

'I should say—But, is it true?' broke off Florence.

'Not true, as you and Mr. Hunter would count fortunes,' smiled Austin; 'but true, as poor I, born without silver spoons in my mouth, and expecting to work hard for all I shall ever possess, have looked upon them. Mrs. Thornimett has behaved to me most kindly, most generously; she has bequeathed to me two thousand pounds.'

'I am delighted to hear it,' said Florence, her glad eyes sparkling. 'Never call yourself poor again.'

'I cannot call myself rich, as Mr. and Mrs. Hunter compute riches. But, Florence, it may be a stepping-stone to become so.'

'A stepping-stone to become what?' demanded Dr. Bevary, breaking in upon the conference.

'Rich,' said Austin, turning to the doctor. 'I am telling Florence that I have come into some money since I went away.'

Mr. Hunter and others were gathering around them, and the conversation became general. 'What is that, Clay?' asked Mr. Hunter. 'You have come into a fortune, do you say?'

'I said, not into a fortune, sir, as those accustomed to fortune would estimate it. That great physician, standing there and listening to me, he would laugh at the sum: I daresay he makes more in six months. But it may prove a stepping-stone to fortune, and to—to other desirable things.'

'Do not speak so vaguely,' cried the doctor, in his quaint fashion. 'Define the "desirable things." Come! it's my turn now.'

'I am not sure that they have taken a sufficiently tangible shape as yet, to be defined,' returned Austin, in the same tone. 'You might laugh at them for day-dreams.'

Unwittingly his eye rested for a moment upon Florence. Did she deem the day-dreams might refer to her, that her eye-lids should droop, and her cheeks turn scarlet? Dr. Bevary noticed both the look and the signs; Mr. Hunter saw neither.

'Day-dreams would be enchanting as an eastern fairy-tale, only that they never get realized,' interposed one of the fair guests, with a pretty simper, directed to Austin Clay and his attractions.

'I will realize mine,' he returned, rather too confidently, 'Heaven helping me!'

'A better stepping-stone, that help, to rely upon, than the money you have come into,' said Dr. Bevary, with one of his peculiar nods.

'True, doctor,' replied Austin. 'But may not the money have come from the same helping source? Heaven, you know, vouchsafes to work with humble instruments.'

The last few sentences had been interchanged in a low tone. They now passed into the general circle, and the evening went on to its close.

Austin and Dr. Bevary were the last to leave the house. They quitted it together, and the doctor passed his arm within Austin's as they walked on.

'Well,' said he, 'and what have you been doing at Ketterford?'

'I have told you, doctor. Leaving my dear old friend and relative in her grave; and, realizing the fact that she has bequeathed to me this money.'

'Ah, yes; I heard that,' returned the doctor. 'You've been seeing friends too, I suppose. Did you happen to meet the Gwinns?'

'Once. I was passing the house, and Miss Gwinn laid hands upon me from the window, and commanded me in. I got out again as soon as I could. Her brother made his appearance as I was leaving.'

'And what did he say to you?' asked the doctor, in a tone meant to be especially light and careless.

'Nothing; except that he told me if I wanted a safe and profitable investment for the money I had inherited under Mrs. Thornimett's will, he could help me to one. I cut him very short, sir.'

'What did she say?' resumed Dr. Bevary. 'Did she begin upon her family affairs—as she is rather fond of doing?'

'Well,' said Austin, his tone quite as careless as the doctor's, 'I did not give her the opportunity. Once, when she seemed inclined to do so, I stopped her; telling her that her private affairs were no concern of mine, neither should I listen to them.'

'Quite right, my young friend,' emphatically spoke the doctor.

Not another word was said until they came to Daffodil's Delight. Here they wished each other good night The doctor continued his way to his home, and Austin turned down towards Peter Quale's.

But what could be the matter? Had Daffodil's Delight miscalculated the time, believing it to be day, instead of night? Women leaned out of their windows in night-caps; children had crept from their beds and come forth to tumble into the gutter naked, as some of them literally were; men crowded the doorway of the Bricklayers' Arms, and stood about with pipes and pint pots; all were in a state of rampant excitement. Austin laid hold of the first person who appeared sober enough to listen to him. It happened to be a woman, Mrs. Dunn.

'What is this?' he exclaimed. 'Have you all come into a fortune?' the recent conversation at Mr. Hunter's probably helping him to the remark.

'Better nor that,' shrieked Mrs. Dunn. 'Better nor that, a thousand times! We have circumvented the masters, and got our ends, and now we shall just have all we want—roast goose and apple pudding for dinner, and plenty of beer to wash it down with.'

'But what is it that you have got?' pursued Austin, who was completely at sea.

'Got! why, we have got the STRIKE,' she replied, in joyful excitement. 'Pollocks' men struck to-day. Where have you been, sir, not to have heered on it?'

At that moment a fresh crowd came jostling down Daffodil's Delight, and Austin was parted from the lady. Indeed, she rushed up to the mob to follow in their wake. Many other ladies followed in their wake—half Daffodil's Delight, if one might judge by numbers. Shouting, singing, exulting, dancing; it seemed as if they had, for the nonce, gone mad. Sam Shuck, in his long-tailed coat, ornamented with its holes and its slits, was leading the van, his voice hoarse, his face red, his legs and arms executing a war-dance of exaltation. He it was who had got up the excitement and was keeping it up, shouting fiercely: 'Hurrah for the work of this day! Rule Britanniar! Britons never shall be slaves! The Strike has begun, friends! H—o—o—o—o—o—r—rah! Three cheers for the Strike!'

Yes. The Strike had begun.