my Board days."

"It was only to say, Philip--you spoke to me yesterday of money--to be
invested."

"Yes?" he said politely, without moving a muscle.

"I have been thinking it all over, and I remember that there is a
thousand pounds or two which John Tatham placed for me in a mortgage,
and which is in my own power."

"Ah!" he said, "a thousand pounds or two," with a shrug of his
shoulders; "it is scarcely worth while, is it, changing an investment
for so small a matter as a thousand pounds?"

"If you think so, Philip--it is all I can think of that is in my own
power."

"It is really not worth the trouble," he said, "and I am in a hurry." He
made a step towards the door and then turned round again. "Well," he
said, "just to show there is no ill-feeling, I'll find you something,
perhaps, to put your tuppenceha'penny in to-day."

And then there was John Tatham to face after that!

CHAPTER XXI.

It cost Mrs. Dennistoun a struggle to yield to her daughter and her
daughter's husband, and with her eyes open and no delusion on the
subject to throw away her two thousand pounds. Two thousand pounds is a
big thing to throw away. There are many people much richer than Mrs.
Dennistoun who would have thought it a wicked thing to do, and some who
would have quarrelled with both daughter and son-in-law rather than do
so foolish a thing. For it was not merely making a present, so to speak,
of the money, it was throwing it away. To have given it to Elinor would
have been nothing, it would have been a pleasure; but in Phil's
investment Mrs. Dennistoun had no confidence. It was throwing her money
after Elinor's money into that hungry sea which swallows up everything
and gives nothing again.

But if that had been difficult for her, it may be imagined with what
feelings she contemplated her necessary meeting with John Tatham. She
knew everything he would say--more, she knew what he would look: his
astonishment, his indignation, the amazement with which he would regard
it. John was far from being incapable of a sacrifice. Mrs. Dennistoun,
indeed, did him more than justice in that respect, for she believed that
he had himself been on the eve of asking Elinor to marry him when she
was snatched up by, oh, so much less satisfactory a man! which the
reader knows is not quite the case, though perhaps it required quite as
much self-denial on John's part to stand by Elinor and maintain her
cause under her altered circumstances a