“She has no relations at all.  But I will just tell you the story of my visit.”

“I hope it’s interesting,” said Ascott, who was lying on the sofa, half asleep, his general habit after dinner.  He woke, however, during his Aunt Hilary’s relation, and when she reached its climax, that the offer was for her to manage a stationer’s shop, he burst out heartily laughing: 

“Well, that is a rich idea.  I’ll come and buy of you.  You’ll look so pretty standing behind a counter.”

But Selina said, angrily, “You cannot even think of such a thing.  It would be a disgrace to the family.”

“No,” said Hilary, clasping tightly her eldest sister’s hand—­they two had already talked the matter over:  “I can not see any disgrace.  If our family is so poor that the women must earn their living as well as the men, all we have to see is that it should be honestly earned.  What do you say, Ascott?”

She looked earnestly at him; she wanted sorely to find out what he really thought.

But Ascott took it, as he did every thing, very easily.  “I don’t see why Aunt Selina should make such a fuss.  Why need you do anything, Aunt Hilary?  Can’t we hold out a little longer, and live upon tick till I get into practice?  Of course, I shall then take care of you all; I’m the head of the family.  How horribly dark this room is!”

He started up, and gave the fire a fierce poke, which consumed in five minutes a large lump of coal that Hilary had hoped—­oh, cruel, sordid economy—­would have lasted half the evening.

She broke the uneasy silence which followed by asking Johanna to give her opinion.

Johanna roused herself and spoke: 

“Ascott says right; he is the head of the family, and, by-and-by.  I trust will take care of us all.  But he is not able to do it now, and meantime we must live.”

“To be sure, we must Auntie.”

“I mean, my boy, we must live honestly; we must not run into debt:”  and her voice sharpened as with the reflected horror of her young days—­if, alas! there ever had been any youth for Henry Leaf’s eldest daughter.  “No, Ascott, out of debt out of danger.  For myself”—­she laid her thin old fingers on his arm, and looked up at him with a pitiful mixture of reliance and hopelessness—­“I would rather see you breaking stones in the road than living like a gentleman, as you call it, and a swindler, as I call it, upon other people’s money.”

Ascott sprang up, coloring violently.  “You use strong language, Aunt Johanna.  Never mind.  I dare say you are right.  However, it’s no business of mine.  Good-night, for I have an engagement.”

Hilary said, gravely, she wished he would stay and join in the family consultation.

“Oh no; I bate talking over things.  Settle it among yourselves.  As I said, it isn’t my business.”

“You don’t care, then, what becomes of us all?  I sometimes begin to think so.”