She went next to the parlor.  The squire’s chair was empty, and on the little stand at its side, the “Gentleman’s Magazine” lay uncut.  His slippers, usually assumed after dinner, were still warming on the white sheepskin rug before the fire.  But the large, handsome face, that always made a sunshiny feeling round the hearth, was absent; and the room had a loneliness that made her heart fear.  She waited a few minutes, looking with expectation towards a piece of knitting which was Mrs. Sandal’s evening work.  But the ivory needles and the colored wools remained uncalled for, and she grew rapidly impatient, and went to her mother’s room.  Mrs. Sandal was lying upon her couch, exhausted with weeping; and the squire sat holding his head in his hands, the very picture of despondency and sorrow.

“Can I come and speak to you, mother?”

The squire answered, “To be sure you can, Charlotte.  We are glad to see you.  We are in trouble, my dear.”

“Is it Harry, father?”

“Trouble mostly comes that way.  Yes, it is Harry.  He is in a great strait, and wants five hundred pounds, Charlotte; five hundred pounds, dear, and he wants it at once.  Only six weeks ago he wrote in the same way for a hundred and fifty pounds.  He is robbing me, robbing his mother, robbing Sophia and you.”

“William, I wouldn’t give way to temper that road; calling your own son and my son a thief.  It’s not fair,” said Mrs. Sandal, with considerable asperity.

“I must call things by their right names, Alice.  I call a cat, a cat; and I call our Harry a thief; for I don’t know that forcing money from a father is any better than forcing it from a stranger.  It is only using a father’s love as a pick-lock instead of an iron tool.  That’s all the difference, Alice; and I don’t think the difference is one that helps Harry’s case much.  Eh?  What?”

“Dear me! it is always money,” sighed Charlotte.

“Your father knows very well that Harry must have the money, Charlotte.  I think it is cruel of him to make every one ill before he gives what is sure to be given in the end.  Sophia has a headache, I dare say, and I am sure I have.”

“But I cannot give him this money, Alice.  I have not realized on my wool and wheat yet.  I cannot coin money.  I will not beg or borrow it.  I will not mortgage an acre for it.”

“And you will let your only son the heir of Sandal-Side, go to jail and disgrace for five hundred pounds.  I never heard tell of such cruelty.  Never, never, never!”

“You do not know what you are saying, Alice.  Tell me how I am to find five hundred pounds.  Eh?  What?”

“There must be ways.  How can a woman tell?”

“Father, have I not got some money of my own?”

“You have the accrued interest on the thousand pounds your grandmother left you.  Sophia has the same.”

“Is the interest sufficient?”

“You have drawn from it at intervals.  I think there is about three hundred pounds to your credit.”