of it. That will be yours, when your father's will has been proved, young ladies. If you will take my advice, you will be so wise as to remove at your earliest possible convenience from Pendabury, and install yourselves in some place less expensive to keep up. To employ a vulgarism once more, for which I crave excuse—you must cut your coat according to your cloth."
"Probably our best course will be to go to our aunts Benigna and Charlotte," said Joan, "our
father's sisters at Stafford."
"Aunt Benigna may whistle for me," exclaimed Sibylla. "Why, Joan, you know I could never abide either. Benigna belies her name; she is always scolding and finding fault: she has never a good word to say to one—but harangues and sermonises till it makes one sick. As to Charlotte—she is an old stupid, who smiles and sips tea, and has not an idea in her head."
"I am afraid, young lady," said the solicitor, "that these ladies will be found in no position to receive you. I am apprised that they also have lost everything in this Willjoens Reef. They were talked over by their brother James into intrusting their little fortune in his hands. It is infinitely sad and unfortunately true."
"Good heavens! Poor dear old ladies!" gasped Joan. "At their age, what can they do?"
"That settles their hash," said Sibylla; "so talk no more to me of aunts Benigna and Charlotte."
"Mr. Shand," said Joan, "under the circumstances, what is your advice?"
"A sale of everything that can be sold," answered the lawyer, "is not likely to bring in sufficient to maintain you in even moderate comfort. What your father's liabilities are I cannot yet tell. I greatly fear he has risked money of his own apart from what he had laid by for you, and that this may make a sad hole in the half-year's rent. Have you relatives who would come to your aid?"
Joan shook her head.
"Not one. Uncle James Frobisher is now out of the question. My aunts are also out of the question. I really know of none other—that is, none to whom I would care to apply. My dear mother belonged to the Hopgoods—a respectable but not wealthy manufacturing family. My father kept up no relations with them. He considered that his position debarred him from so doing. I would not, indeed I could not consistently with self-respect apply to those whom my dear father so persistently held all these years at arm's length. To appeal as a pauper to them is more than my pride could endure."
"Do not even think of such a thing," said Sibyll. "I wash my hands of the whole Hopgood lot."
"And your father's family?"
"On that side—no relatives other than Uncle James and my two impoverished aunts."
"There is one thing." Mr. Shand spoke hesitatingly, and looked down on the table as he spoke. "Your case is sure to evoke much sympathy. I do not quite know how you will take it—there is a homely and good proverb—but I will not venture to quote it. I have talked the matter over with the Reverend Mr. Barker, your rector, without, of course, entering into particulars, merely indicating the broad outlines of the case. We both think that under the exceptional circumstances, and seeing how widely respected your father was, chairman on the bench and patron of so many societies for the benefiting of the agriculture, and horticulture, and poultry-raising of the country, that some little collection might possibly be suggested that would be warmly taken up by—of course—the county people to—to"—
"Sir!" Joan flamed through throat, cheeks, and temples. "Not another word to that effect."
"I confess I have no other suggestion to make," said the solicitor.
"I thank you, Mr. Shand. I am glad that you have stated the condition of our affairs so plainly," said Joan. "Practically we are left, if not absolutely destitute, yet without a sufficiency to maintain us, unless we eat up our little capital. That capital, whatever it may prove to be, is best left to fall back upon in an emergency. Now that we know the very worst, there is but one thing that can be done—and that is to face it, and face it with good heart, frankly."
Chapter 6
IN THE BEAUDESSART ARMS
One morning, a week after the interview with Mr. Shand, the sisters were in their own private sitting-room together.
Joan was putting away sundry trifles that belonged to her, and getting rid of the ten thousand accumulations that gather in a house during a long tenancy. She burned many old bills and letters.
Sibyll was engaged in doing little more than help her sister, by ensuring combustion of bills and letters, by turning them over, or pressing them down among the coals with the poker in her hand.
"I have made up my mind what I shall do," said she. "I shall go a round of visits, and spend my Christmas with the Maleverers. I shall be able to spin out my engagements through the spring and early summer, and by that time something is sure to turn up."
"You cannot do this," said Joan, looking at her sister with surprise; "visiting comes expensive."
"But it will be economy—I shall save my grub with you."
"Dear Sibyll, that is nothing. Visiting will entail a good deal of outlay in dress."
"You would not have me go shabby."
"No—but as Mr. Shand says, 'You must cut your coat according to your cloth.' You must dress as our means will permit. Besides, there are the servants—presents must be made to them—and there is the cost of travelling. Indeed, Sibyll, it is not possible."
"What shall we be driven to do? Go out as governesses? Well, if I can find a nice family, where the children give no trouble and the salary is good, I will even submit to that. Miss Blair did not have a bad time of it with us—only she would so persistently paint and frizzle, and set her cap at papa."
"Sibyll, you have not been educated for a governess."
"Pshaw! I can read and write and spell indifferently well. I am not much of a hand at the piano, but of course I could teach. It only means letting the pupil muddle along at the scales, and you sit by with a novel, and just throw in a word now and then."
"No, dear, you have neither the training nor the application."
"I have as much as most governesses."
"That may be—but the country is overrun with incapables drifting from situation to situation, staying a term in each, till their incapacity has demonstrated itself unequivocally. No—you are not calculated to be a successful governess."
"Then I shall go on the stage. There are pots of money to be made there so long as one is decent-looking."
"The stage is a profession that is most exacting. It demands training and hard work. You know, Sibyll, that you have a woeful short memory. Go on with the beginning of the Paradise Lost, from
'Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree'"—
"No, Joan, I detest Milton; you know that."
"Well, then, try something else
