will hold us, is not
to be despised; and Hadleigh is a nice place, and the sea always suits
you. There is the house, and the furniture, that belongs to us; and we
have plenty of clothes for the present. How much did Mr. Trinder think
we should have in hand?"

Then her mother told her, but still mournfully, that they might
possibly have about a hundred pounds. "But there are my rings and that
piece of point-lace that Lady Fitzroy admired so----" but Phillis
waved away that proposition with an impatient frown.

"There is plenty of time for that when we have got through all the
money. Not that a hundred pounds would last long, with moving, and
paying off the servants, and all that sort of thing."

Then Nan, who had worn all along an expression of admiring confidence
in Phillis's resources, originated an idea of her own.

"The mother might write to Uncle Francis, perhaps;" but at this
proposition Mrs. Challoner sat upright and looked almost offended.

"My dear Nan, what a preposterous idea! Your uncle Francis!"

"Well, mammy, he is our uncle; and I am sure he would be sorry if his
only brother's children were to starve."

"You are too young to know any better," returned Mrs. Challoner,
relapsing into alarmed feebleness; "you are not able to judge. But I
never liked my brother-in-law,--never; he was not a good man. He was
not a person whom one could trust," continued the poor lady, trying to
soften down certain facts to her innocent young daughters.

Sir Francis Challoner had been a black sheep,--a very black sheep
indeed: one who had dyed himself certainly to a most sable hue; and
though, for such prodigals, there may be a late repentance and much
killing of fatted calves, still Mrs. Challoner was right in refusing
to intrust herself and her children to the uncertain mercies of such a
sinner.

Now, Nan knew nothing about the sin; but she did think that an uncle
who was a baronet threw a certain reflected glory or brightness over
them. Sir Francis might be that very suspicious character, a black
sheep; he might be landless, with the exception of that ruined
tenement in the North; nevertheless, Nan loved to know that he was of
their kith and kin. It seemed to settle their claims to
respectability, and held Mr. Mayne in some degree of awe; and he knew
that his own progenitors had not the faintest trace of blue blood, and
numbered more aldermen than baronets.

It would have surprised and grieved Nan, especially just