Sarah's School Friend Part 46

'It just shows how quickly they can be lost,' she observed.

'Well, it seems to have done them all good, so I don't think we need regret it or pity them,' said Mr Cunningham.

'Only, I do wish you had seen Balmoral; it was like Aladdin's palace. I never saw anything like it,' cried Horatia.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

LAST.

The worst had come and pa.s.sed. Two days later Mr Clay announced his intention of going down to the mill. 'Not that I'm going to take things out of your hand, lad--nay, I shall never be good for much again--but just to see the old place, and say a word to some of the hands,' he explained.

'Will you wait till this afternoon, father?' asked George.

'Why? What's doing?' inquired his father.

'Only carrying bales for a big order,' said George.

'I'd like to see that; it means business,' persisted the mill-owner. And he had his way.

'I wanted to get the warehouse cleared before he came,' George explained to his sister, who was his confidante; for Mrs Clay, strange to say, took no interest in the mills or her son's proceedings except so far as it 'pleased father.'

However, Mr Clay came down, and saw the huge bales being sent off to the s.h.i.+pping line. His quick business eye took in the whole situation at a glance. 'You've been slack. It's been a heavy pull,' he said gravely.

'Yes, father; but the worst is over, and things are looking up. We've cleared this side, and I've had two more smaller orders since Mr Cunningham's,' said his son.

'And you've borne all that worry alone, and never told me a word. You're too good to your old father, both of you, for I've brought it on you; it's me the buyers have forsaken, not you. But they'll come round again.

We make good cloth and blankets, and they know it,' he said; but he did not boast as he used to do.

The hands, looking rather ashamed and shy, greeted him respectfully as he walked slowly along, dragging his paralysed foot after him. 'I'm glad to see you again,' he said again and again.

But when he had gone, they shook their heads and said Mark Clay would never be the man he had been, and that it was the young master they must look to now.

'And a good master he'll be, though he's a bit too polite, and down upon what he calls rudeness, which is only our way,' said one of the young men.

'You've taught them London manners, lad,' said Mark Clay, looking at his son quizzically, as he noticed how no man, woman, or child pa.s.sed the young master without some greeting.

George laughed. 'I couldn't stand their rough ways,' he admitted.

'Well, I've nought against it, and I see you've made some other alterations for their benefit; but I've nought against that either.

You've done well by the mill and by me, and I'm proud of you, and proud of my girl, for she's got a shrewd business head, too, it seems.'

'Yes; I couldn't have done it without her. She is so quick, and seems to know the right thing by instinct,' said George.

'That's the woman's way. It's wonderful how they'll see things we can't.

Your mother's the same,' replied Mark Clay.

And George made no comment on this change of front, though he remembered the times without number that his blood had boiled when the millionaire had spoken contemptuously of his wife, and told her that she did not know what she was talking about.

It is two years later, and a motor-car drove up to a beautiful house that stood on the place that Balmoral formerly occupied. Out of the motor stepped a young man with a good-humoured, freckled face, very like Horatia, whom he handed out, and who was now a very nice-looking girl of seventeen.

'We've come to your house-warming, Sarah,' she cried. 'And, oh, what a beautiful house! It's almost as good as the last one. And you've got a marble staircase and all. Why, it's exactly like the other!' she cried.

Sarah shook her head. 'It's not so big or so grand; but we tried to make it like the last to please father and mother. Poor mother was always talking of her marble staircase, so that's exactly copied, and so is the parquetry flooring, and her rooms are as like as we could make them; but we have no royal apartments for you this time,' she said.

'I'm glad of it. I don't mind telling you now that I used to have a nightmare every night, dreaming that burglars had come in and murdered me for my wealth--thinking it was mine, you know,' Horatia confided to her.

'Father is in the drawing-room waiting to see you. He is still rather an invalid,' said Sarah as she led the way to it.

'It's almost the same, Sarah!' Horatia cried again. 'Yes; and we still have the gold plate and Sevres china. Sykes saved a lot of things, we found afterwards; but it's not so palatial, and father wouldn't have it called Balmoral any more. He said that was boastful.'

'Oh! What is the name of the house, then?' inquired Horatia.

'Father will tell you,' said Sarah.

'So you've kept your promise, and come to stay with us again; only, this time it's my son's house,' said Mr Mark Clay.

'Oh no, father; he says not,' cried Sarah.

Mr Clay shook his head. 'I lost my all when I lost Balmoral, and he built up the fortune again. I'll never have a mansion here; but I'm content to stay in my son's till I get a mansion in the sky,' he said.

Horatia smiled at the allusion to her speech. 'What is the name of the house?' she asked.

'Horatia House. We all wished to have something to remind us that it was your family we had to thank for having a home again. You made the tide turn and the dye take. George wanted to call it Arnedale House, after your ancestor; but Sarah said, "Call it Horatia House," and so we did.'

'And a very pretty name it is,' said little Mrs Clay, who looked very pretty herself.

'That is a very pretty compliment you have paid me! I feel I ought to make a pretty speech of thanks, but I don't know how,' cried Horatia with a merry laugh.

'Here's the mill-owner,' said his father, as George came in, looking as aristocratic as ever, with the same pleasant smile and perfect manners, only wide awake. 'I've a right to be proud of my children, haven't I?

They're all I am proud of now,' said Mr Clay as he took a hand of each.

And Horatia and her brother agreed with him that he had a right to be proud of his children.

THE END.