George looked at his brother.

“Out with it,” cried he, “it is some deadly ill-luck; I have felt it coming all day, but out with it; what can’t I bear after the words I have borne this morning?”

William hung his head.

“George, there is a distress upon the farm for the rent.”

George did not speak at first, he literally staggered under these words; his proud spirit writhed in his countenance, and with a groan, he turned his back abruptly upon them all and hid his face against the corner of his own house, the cold hard bricks.

Meadows, by strong self-command, contrived not to move a muscle of his face.

Up to this day and hour, Susan Merton had always seemed cool, compared with her lover; she used to treat him a little de haut en bas.

But when she saw his shame and despair, she was much distressed.

“George, George!” she cried, “don’t do so.  Can nothing be done?  Where is my father?—­they told me he was here.  He is rich, he shall help you.”  She darted from them in search of Merton; ere she could turn the angle of the house he met her.

“You had better go home, my girl,” said he gravely.

“Oh, no, no!  I have been too unkind to George already,” and she turned toward him like a pitying angel with hands extended as if they would bring balm to a hurt soul.

Meadows left chuckling and was red and white by turns.

Merton was one of those friends one may make sure of finding in adversity.

“There,” cried he, “George, I told you how it would end.”

George wheeled round on him like lightning.

“What, do you come here to insult over me?  I must be a long way lower than I am, before I shall be as low as you were when my mother took you up and made a man of you.”

“George, George!” cried Susan in dismay; “stop, for pity’s sake, before you say words that will separate us forever.  Father,” cried the peace-making angel, “how can you push poor George so hard and him in trouble! and we have all been too unkind to him to-day.”

Ere either could answer, there was happily another interruption.  A smart servant in livery walked up to them with a letter.  With the instinctive feeling of class they all endeavored to conceal their agitation from the gentleman’s servant.  He handed George the note, and saying, “I was to wait for an answer, Farmer Fielding,” sauntered toward the farm-stables.

“From Mr. Winchester,” said George, after a long and careful inspection of the outside.

In the country it is a point of honor to find out the writer of a letter by the direction, not the signature.

“The Honorable Francis Winchester!  What does he write to you?” cried Merton, in a tone of great surprise.  This, too, was not lost on George.

Human nature is human nature.  He was not sorry to be able to read a gentleman’s letter in the face of one who had bitterly reproached him, and of others who had seen him mortified and struck down.