“Very plain, sir,” said Reginald, who had grown as pale as he was red before.
“I am glad to hear it; you will write to the Corporation at once, accepting or rejecting at your pleasure; but this must be done tonight. I must insist on its being done tonight; and if you find yourself sufficiently bold to reject an income,” said Mr. May with emphasis, “and go off into the world without a penny in your pocket, I wash my hands of it; it is nothing to me.”
Then there was a pause. The father of the family sat down in his chair, and looked round him with the happy consciousness that he had made everybody miserable. The girls were both crying, Reginald pale and desperate, coming and going through the room. No one had escaped but Johnnie, who, happy in insignificance, lay all his length on the other side of the fire, and lifted his face from his book to watch the discomfiture of the others. Johnnie had no terrors on his own account. He had done nothing to call forth the paternal wrath. Mr. May could not resist this temptation.
“Is that a way to learn lessons as they ought to be learnt?” he cried suddenly, throwing one of his darts at the unthinking boy. “Get up this moment, and sit down to a table somewhere. Your own room, where there is nobody to disturb you, is better than amid the chitchat here; do you hear me? get up, sir, and go.”
Johnnie stumbled to his feet appalled; he was too much startled to say anything. He took his books across the room to the writing-table which Reginald had abandoned in a similar way. But by the time he reached that haven, he came to himself, and recovering his courage muttered something about the hardship to which he was thus exposed, as boys have a way of doing; upon which Mr. May got suddenly up, seized him by the shoulders and turned him out of the drawing-room. “I said your own room, sir,” cried this impartial father, distributing to all alike an equal share of his urbanities. When he had accomplished this, he stood for a moment and looked at the rest of his confused and uncomfortable family. “There is not much cheerful society to be had here this evening, I perceive,” he said. “It is pleasant to come in from one’s cares and find a reception like this, don’t you think? Let someone bring me some coffee to my study. I am going to write.”
“Whose fault is it that he gets such a reception?” burst forth Janey, the moment her father had closed the door. “Who does it all, I wonder? Who treats us like a set of wretches without any feeling? I can’t hush, I won’t hush! Oh, shouldn’t I be glad to go out as a housemaid, to do anything!”
“Oh, Janey, hush! we can’t help ourselves, we are obliged to put up with it,” said Ursula; “but Reginald, he is not obliged, he can save himself when he likes. Oh, I know, I know papa is unreasonable; but, Reginald, aren’t you a little bit unreasonable too?”
“Don’t you begin to reproach me,” cried the young man, “I have had enough for one day. Have I been such a charge upon him, Ursula? What has he spent upon me? Next to nothing. That tailor’s bill he spoke of, he knew as well as I do that I paid it by the tutorship I had in the vacation. It is his bill that is not paid, not mine. And then James’s money—”
“Oh, never mind that, never mind the past,” cried Ursula, “think of the present, that’s what you ought to do. Oh, Reginald, think; if I had the chance of two hundred and fifty pounds a year! there is nothing I would not do for it. I would scrub floors, as he said, I would do anything, the dirtiest work. You will be independent, able to do what you please, and never to ask papa for anything. Reginald, think! Oh, dear, dear, I wish I knew how to talk to you. To be independent, able to please yourself!”
“I shall be independent anyhow after tonight,” he said. “Ursula, you will help me to pack my things, won’t you? It is leaving you here, you girls, with nobody to stand up for you; it is that I feel most.”
“Oh, Reginald, don’t go and leave us,” cried Janey, leaning on the back of his chair; “what can we do without you? When he comes in, in a rage like tonight, as long as you are here one can bear it. Oh, Reginald, can’t you, can’t you take the chaplaincy? Think what it would be for us.”
“Yes, I will pack your things,” said Ursula, “I will help you to get out of it, though we must stay and put up with it all, and never, never escape. But where will you go? You have no money, not enough scarcely to pay your railway fare. You would have to take to teaching; and where are you to go?”
“I have some friends left,” cried Reginald,
