nd need every penny
that I can scrape together. I am getting on; and I can see well
enough that, unless something occurs to upset the whole thing, I
shall be doing a big trade, one of these days; but every half penny
of profit has to go into the business. So, as you know, I cannot
help you at present though, by the time the girls grow up, I hope I
shall be able to do so, and that to a good extent.

"I feel sure that it would not be a bad thing for Stanley. He will
soon get to be useful to me, and in three or four years will be a
valuable assistant. Speaking Hindustani as well as he does, he
won't be very long in picking up enough of the various dialects in
Kathee and Chittagong for our purpose and, by twenty, he will have
a share of the business, and be on the highway towards making his
fortune. It will be infinitely better than anything he is likely to
find in England, and he will be doing a man's work at the age when
he would still be a schoolboy in England.

"I have spoken to him about it. Of course, he does not like leaving
you, but he says that he should like it a thousand times better
than, perhaps, having to go into some humdrum office in England."

"Thank you, Tom," Mrs. Brooke said with a sigh. "It will be very
hard to part with him--terribly hard--but I see that it is by far
the best thing for him and, as you say, in a monetary way it will
be a relief to me. I think I can manage very comfortably on the
pension, in some quiet place at home, with the two girls; but
Stanley's schooling would be a heavy drain. I might even manage
that, for I might earn a little money by painting; but there would
be the question of what to do with him when he left school and,
without friends or influence, it will be hopeless to get him into
any good situation.

"You see, Herbert's parents have both died since he came out here
and, though he was distantly related to the Earl of Netherly, he
was only a second cousin, or something of that kind, and knew
nothing about the family; and of course I could not apply to them."

"Certainly not, Nellie," her brother agreed. "There is nothing so
hateful as posing as a poor relation--and that is a connection
rather than a relationship. Then you will leave the boy in my
hands?"

"I am sure that it will be best," she said, with a tremor in her
voice, "and at any rate, I shall have the comfort of knowing that
he will be well looked after."

Mrs. Brooke was the widow of a captain in one of