you have your own way. Still, as it is rather late, if you
have no objection I think that I had better put if off till
to-morrow."

"No, no, father. By to-morrow you will have changed your mind. Let us
have it now. I want to know how much we really owe, and what we have
got to live on."

The old gentleman hummed and hawed a little, and after various
indications of impatience at last began:

"Well, as you know, our family has for some generations depended upon
the land. Your dear mother brought a small fortune with her, five or
six thousand pounds, but that, with the sanction of her trustees, was
expended upon improvements to the farms and in paying off a small
mortgage. Well, for many years the land brought in about two thousand
a year, but somehow we always found it difficult to keep within that
income. For instance, it was necessary to repair the gateway, and you
have no idea of the expense in which those repairs landed me. Then
your poor brother James cost a lot of money, and always would have the
shooting kept up in such an extravagant way. Then he went into the
army, and heaven only knows what he spent there. Your brother was very
extravagant, my dear, and well, perhaps I was foolish; I never could
say him no. And that was not all of it, for when the poor boy died he
left fifteen hundred pounds of debt behind him, and I had to find the
money, if it was only for the honour of the family. Of course you know
that we cut the entail when he came of age. Well, and then these
dreadful times have come upon the top of it all, and upon my word, at
the present moment I don't know which way to turn," and he paused and
drummed his fingers uneasily upon a book.

"Yes, father, but you have not told me yet what it is that we owe."

"Well, it is difficult to answer that all in a minute. Perhaps twenty-
five thousand on mortgage, and a few floating debts."

"And what is the place worth?"

"It used to be worth between fifty and sixty thousand pounds. It is
impossible to say what it would fetch now. Land is practically a drug
in the market. But things will come round, my dear. It is only a
question of holding on.

"Then if you borrow a fresh sum in order to take up this farm, you
will owe about thirty thousand pounds, and if you give five per cent.,
as I suppose you do, you will have to pay fifteen hundred a year in
interest. Now, father, you said that in the good times the land
brought in two thousand a year, so, of course,