THE ARGOSY.

DECEMBER, 1876.

EDINA.

BY MRS. HENRY WOOD, AUTHOR OF "EAST LYNNE."

TIME

CHAPTER XXXIV.

MEETING AGAIN.

IME flew. Summer had come round again: and it was now close upon three years since Mrs. Raynor and her children had quitted Eagles' Nest. Certainly, affairs could not be said to be progressing with them: rather the contrary. The past winter and spring had brought trouble. All the three younger children were attacked with scarlatina, and it had left Kate so long ill that much care had to be taken with her. Mrs. Raynor was laid up at the same time for several weeks with bronchitis; and the whole of the nursing fell upon Edina. Sickness entails expense; not only as regards medical attendance, but in other ways: as those who have experienced it and who possess but a shallow purse can only too well testify.

With so much on her hands, and Mrs. Raynor laid by, Edina could not continue to do the work by which they were helped to live. A little of it she did continue to take, but it was very little: and she had to sit up at night and steal hours from her needful rest to accomplish even so much. This did not please the proprietors of the warehouse that supplied her with it; they evidently did not care to continue to supply her at all; and when things got round again, and she and Mrs. Raynor would have been glad to do the same quantity of work as before, the work was not given them to do. Whether it was, as the warehouse people protested, that the work was growing scarce through change of fashion and consequent lack of demand, or whether it was that the people preferred to employ those whose industry was not interrupted by sickness or else, the result came to the same: the employment failed.

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And this, in these early days of June, was the state of affairs: the family pinching and starving more than ever, for during the time of sickness Edina's private funds had been anticipated and debts contracted, and the work failing. Charles was wearing out his days at the office; Alice was teaching at Mrs. Preen's. Never had the future looked so dark as it was looking now.

Albeit not one to despair

This fact was very present to Edina. beforehand, or to meet trouble half way, she could not avoid apprehensions for the future. Money was wanted in so many ways—extra money and they had it not. Mrs. Raynor was very delicate, requiring wine and other luxuries; the children wanted good nourishment in the shape of meat, and they could not get it. The common provisions within their reach were ominously dear, and seemed to get dearer every week.

One day when they were at dinner-such dinner as it was— Alice came in. Perhaps the little pinched faces around the scanty board-and both Kate's and Robert's did look pinched-struck unpleasantly upon Alice, for she was evidently in less good spirits than usual. She had come down by the omnibus, and taken them by surprise.

"Not anything at all for me, thank you, Edina," she said, as Edina was placing a chair for her at the table. "Mrs. Preen made me take some bread-and-butter before I came out, and I shall have some meat with my tea."

An idea, like a fear, flashed into the mind of Mrs. Raynor. It was so very unusual for Alice to come down in this unexpected manner. "You have brought bad news, child!" she faintly said. "What is it?"

And, for answer, Alice burst into tears. The knowledge of their home privations was to her as a very nightmare, for she had a feeling heart. What with that and other thoughts, her spirits were never high

now.

"I don't know how to tell it you," she sobbed; "but it is what I am come to do. Mamma, I am going to leave Mrs. Preen's."

Mrs. Raynor sank back in her chair. "Oh, child! For any fault ?” Not for any fault, Alice went on to explain, as she dried her eyes. Mrs. Preen, who had not been in strong health lately, was ordered for a lengthened term to her native place, Devonshire, where she would stay with her mother. She could not make it convenient to take her two elder little girls with her, neither did she care to leave them at home during her absence. So they were to be placed at school, and Alice had received notice to quit at the end of a month.

"If I were sure of getting another situation at once, I would not mind it so much," she said. "But it is the uncertainty that frightens I cannot afford to be out of a situation."

me.

"Misfortunes never come alone," sighed Mrs. Raynor.

"Let us hope for the best," said Edina briskly, as she began put. ting the plates and dishes together to be carried away. "A whole month is a good while, Alice, and we can begin to make inquiries for you at once. Perhaps Mr. Jones at the library can hear of something. I will speak to him: he is very kind and friendly."

"Do you ever come across that Bill Stane now, Alice?" burst out Alfred, as he picked up his cap to go off to school. "We saw in the paper that Sir Philip was dead. That is, we saw something about his will."

"He comes now and then to Mrs. Preen's," replied Alice, blushing vividly, for she could not hear William Stane's name without emotion. "What did you see about Sir Philip's will?" she added, in the most careless voice she could call up.

"Oh, I don't know-how his money was left, I think. Charley reckoned up that Bill Stane would have ten thousand pounds to his share. Charley says he is getting on at the Bar like a house on fire." "Shall you not be late, Alfred ?"

"I am off now.

you come home."

Good-bye, Alice. It will be jolly, you know, if

"Not jolly for the dinners," put in poor Katie, who had learnt by sad experience what a vast difference one extra made.

"Oh, bother the dinners!" cried Alfred, with all a schoolboy's improvidence. "I'll eat bread-and-cheese. Good-bye, Alice."

"Did you chance to hear what Sir Philip died of, Alice?" questioned Mrs. Raynor, when the doors had done banging after Alfred. "No, mamma."

"But you see William Stane sometimes, don't you?" "Yes, I see Mr. Stane now and then. Not often.

said anything about his father in my hearing."

He has not

"I wonder at that. So friendly as we once were." "The first time I saw Mr. Stane after Sir Philip died, I said just a few words to him-that I was sorry to hear he was dead," resumed Alice. "I thought perhaps it was what would be expected of me. He thanked me, and said, Yes, it was a blow to them all, because his father had been latterly so much better, and the death at the last was sudden. He did not say any more."

Quite so, mamma. When I first went to Mrs. Preen's he was very cold and distant; but lately he has been much more friendly." "Well, child, I can only say how unfortunate it is that you should have to be thrown out of your situation. It may be so difficult to get

rother."

"Mrs. Preen says she will look out for me," concluded Alice with a rising sob. "She knows that good appointments are scarce."

But not one of them felt the news as Edina felt it. It was she who took the most practical part in all their home troubles and straits, therefore she could best dread additional difficulty. Only the previous day she had gone into the City to the warehouse that had supplied her with the chenille and silk nets, and had an interview with the master. He assured her that the nets had gone almost entirely out of fashion, that they had none to give out, and suggested that she should try her hand at some other employment-say the crape-trimming work. But Edina did not know how the crape work was done, or anything about it, and had come home disheartened.

Another matter, that had been giving her and Mrs. Raynor concern for some little time, was the education of the children. Alfred ought to go now to a better school; Robert ought to be at one. The child was eight years old. Sometimes it had crossed Edina's mind to wish he could be got into Christ's Hospital: she deemed it high time now, with Alice coming home, to think about it practically. If poor little Bob could get admitted there, it would make room for Alice.

Talking it over with Mrs. Raynor and Charles that same evening, it was decided that the first practical step towards it must be to get a list of the governors. It might be that one of that body had known something of Major Raynor in the days gone by, and would help his little son. How was the list to be procured? They knew not, and went to bed pondering the question.

"I will go to the library and ask Mr. Jones," said Edina the next morning. "Perhaps he has one."

Mr. Jones had not a list; but he thought he knew where he could borrow one. And he did so, bringing it himself to the door in the after part of the day. Edina sat down to study it.

"Here is one name nearly at the beginning that we know," she said, looking up with quite a bright smile.

"Is there!" exclaimed Charles, with animation, catching sight of the smile, and taking an imaginative view of Robert, yellow-stockinged and capless. "Whose name is it, Edina? Read it out."

"George Atkinson, Esquire, Eagles' Nest."

"How unfortunate!" exclaimed Mrs. Raynor.

whom we cannot apply."

"The very man to

"The very man to whom we will apply," corrected Edina. "If you will not, Mary, I will."

"Would you ask a favour of him?"

"Yes," said Edina emphatically. "Mr. Atkinson has not behaved well to you let us put it in his power to make some slight reparation."

"Edina, I-I hope I am not uncharitable or unforgiving, but I do not feel that I can ask him," breathed poor Mrs. Raynor.

"But I don't want you to ask him, Mary; I will do that," returned

Edina. "Perhaps I shall not like doing it more than you would; but the thought of poor little Robert will give me courage."

"Those governors have only a presentation once in three years, I fancy," observed Charles. "The master of Eagles' Nest may have

given away his."

"We can but ascertain, Charley.

And now-I wonder how we are

to get his address? I hope he is in England!"

"He is at Eagles' Nest, Edina."

"At Eagles' Nest!" repeated Edina. “Is he?"

"He took possession of it six months ago, and gave Fairfax, who was in it, a house hard by. And I know he is there still, for only a day or two ago I saw Preen address a letter to him."

"You never told us he was at Eagles' Nest, Charles," said Edina, a shade of reproach in her tone.

"George

"Why should I have told you?" returned Charles. Atkinson's movements have nothing to do with us now; nor is his name so pleasant a one to us that it need be gratuitously mentioned."

"Well, I am glad he is at Eagles' Nest, for I shall go to him, instead of writing," concluded Edina. "In these cases a personal application And, Mary, you will, at

is generally of more use than a written one.

any rate, wish me God speed."

"With my whole heart," replied Mrs. Raynor.

Once more Edina Raynor stood before the gates of Eagles' Nest. As she walked from the station, being unable to afford a fly, the great alteration in the place struck her. Not in Eagles' Nest itself: that looked just the same: but in the demesne pertaining to it. The land was well-cared for and flourishing; the pigsties had been renovated into decent and healthy cottages; the row of dwellings, stopped in their construction and remaining ugly skeletons, had been completed; other rows had been erected, and all were filled with contented inhabitants; and the men and women that Edina saw about as she passed, looked respectable, and happy. None could look on the estate of Eagles' Nest as it was now, and not see how good and wise was its ruler. Her Aunt Ann's supineness and Major Raynor's neglect had been remedied.

"Is Mr. Atkinson at home?" asked Edina, as a servant whom she did not know answered her ring.

"He is at home, ma'am, but I do not think you can see him," was the answer. "Mr. Atkinson is very unwell indeed, and does not see

visitors."

"I think he will perhaps see me," said Edina. And she took a leaf from her pocket-book, and wrote her name, adding that she wished to see him very much.