Chapter 1 - Page 2

projecting on either side.

"I know he won't come," she repeated.

"Nonsense, Laura! Of course he'll come. A sailor and afraid of the
weather!"

"Ha!" She raised her finger, and a smile of triumph played over her
face, only to die away again into a blank look of disappointment.
"It is only papa," she murmured.

A shuffling step was heard in the hall, and a little peaky man, with his
slippers very much down at the heels, came shambling into the room.
Mr. McIntyre, sen., was pale and furtive-looking, with a thin straggling
red beard shot with grey, and a sunken downcast face. Ill-fortune
and ill-health had both left their marks upon him. Ten years before he
had been one of the largest and richest gunmakers in Birmingham, but a
long run of commercial bad luck had sapped his great fortune, and had
finally driven him into the Bankruptcy Court. The death of his wife on
the very day of his insolvency had filled his cup of sorrow, and he had
gone about since with a stunned, half-dazed expression upon his weak
pallid face which spoke of a mind unhinged. So complete had been his
downfall that the family would have been reduced to absolute poverty
were it not for a small legacy of two-hundred a year which both the
children had received from one of their uncles upon the mother's side
who had amassed a fortune in Australia. By combining their incomes, and
by taking a house in the quiet country district of Tamfield, some
fourteen miles from the great Midland city, they were still able
to live with some approach to comfort. The change, however, was a
bitter one to all--to Robert, who had to forego the luxuries dear to his
artistic temperament, and to think of turning what had been merely an
overruling hobby into a means of earning a living; and even more to
Laura, who winced before the pity of her old friends, and found the
lanes and fields of Tamfield intolerably dull after the life and bustle
of Edgbaston. Their discomfort was aggravated by the conduct of their
father, whose life now was one long wail over his misfortunes, and who
alternately sought comfort in the Prayer-book and in the decanter for
the ills which had befallen him.

To Laura, however, Tamfield presented one attraction, which was now
about to be taken from her. Their choice of the little country hamlet
as their residence had been determined by the fact of their old
friend, the Reverend John Spurling, having been nominated as the vicar.
Hector Spurling, the elder son, two months Laura's senior, had been
engaged to her for some years, and was, indeed, upon the point of
marrying her when the sudden financial crash had disarranged their
plans. A sub-lieutenant in the Navy, he was home on leave at