e there's anything in it? I don't think there is for
an instant.' And she did not. Even the placing of Milly's hand on Fred
Ryley's shoulder in full sight of the street, even this she regarded
only as the pretty indiscretion of a child. 'Oh! there's nothing in it,'
she repeated.

'Well, there's _got_ to be nothing in it. You must keep an eye on 'em. I
won't have it.'

She leaned forward, and, resting her elbows on her knees, put her chin
in her long hands. Her bangles disappeared amid lace.

'What's the matter with Fred?' said she. 'He's a relation; and you've
said before now that he's a good clerk,'

'He's a decent enough clerk. But he's not for our girls.'

'If it's only money----' she began.

'Money!' John cried. 'He'll have money. Oh! he'll have money right
enough. Look here, Nora, I've not told you before, but I'll tell you
now. Uncle Meshach's altered his will in favour of young Ryley.'

'Oh! Jack!'

John Stanway stood up, gazing at his wife with an air of martyrised
virtue which said: 'There! what do you think of that as a specimen of
the worries which I keep to myself?'

She raised her eyebrows with a gesture of deep concern. And all the time
she was asking herself: 'Why did Uncle Meshach alter his will? Why did
he do that? He must have had some reason.' This question troubled her
far more than the blow to their expectations.

John's maternal grandfather had married twice. By his first wife he had
had one son, Shadrach; and by his second wife two daughters and a son,
Mary (John's mother), Hannah, and Meshach. The last two had never
married. Shadrach had estranged all his family (except old Ebenezer) by
marrying beneath him, and Mary had earned praise by marrying rather
well. These two children, by a useful whim of the eccentric old man, had
received their portions of the patrimony on their respective
wedding-days. They were both dead. Shadrach, amiable but incompetent,
had died poor, leaving a daughter, Susan, who had repeated, even more
reprehensibly, her father's sin of marrying beneath her. She had married
a working potter, and thus reduced her branch of the family to the
status from which old Ebenezer had originally raised himself. Fred
Ryley, now an orphan, was Susan's only child. As an act of charity John
Stanway had given Fred Ryley a stool in the office of his manufactory;
but, though Fred's mother was John's first cousin, John never
acknowledged the fact. John argued that Fred's mother and F