you have both
done,' said Mr Howroyd as he went off, looking bright and cheery again.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

SARAH BECOMES A BUSINESS WOMAN.

Mr Howroyd had not been gone very long when George came in, his usually
calm, unruffled brow puckered, and his face wearing a worried look. 'I
say, Sarah, I'm afraid I've been very presumptuous in undertaking to
carry on my father's business,' he said.

'What has happened? Aren't they behaving all right?' inquired Sarah,
looking anxiously at him.

'Oh, the hands? Yes. Hurst, the manager, says they have come back in a
good spirit, and are working all they know to get the contract done. He
says he never saw smarter work,' George told her.

'Then I don't see what you are worrying about,' said Sarah, laughing, as
she added, 'I expect they want to show that they are as good as any
"Frenchies," as they call the foreigners.'

'But that isn't the trouble; it's father's customers and the people he
has done business with. Some of them have called in and intimated pretty
plainly that they don't mean to have any dealings with me,' he observed.

'How horrid of them! They might at least have waited to see how you got
on,' exclaimed Sarah in great indignation.

'Well, it was rather my own fault. I suppose they can't afford to wait
and see how things go in business. They began talking about business
deals, and using all sorts of terms which, I suppose, are current in the
wool-trade, and I let them see that I didn't understand anything about
it,' said George.

His face was so melancholy and his forehead so wrinkled that Sarah burst
into a hearty laugh.

'It's no laughing matter; it spells ruin to us if our clients--customers,
I mean--fight shy of us, and we shall be worse off than if I had never
meddled with the matter,' he said severely.

'I am very sorry, George; but I could not help it; it is so funny for you
to be so worried and fidgety. Why didn't you say Uncle Howroyd would
stand surety, and refer them to Hurst? He has been manager for years, and
father used to say that Hurst knew as much about the business as he did
himself. If I were you I'd get him to write a circular-letter to all
those people, and say that in father's temporary absence from business he
is managing for you by Mr Howroyd's advice.'

'I never thought of it. I'm very unfit for all this. I like the dyeing
and the chemical part of the business; but what all these men said was
Chinese to me. I wish you'd jus