Perceiving this, Ernest relieved her mind and told her all about his
aunt's bequest, and how I had husbanded it, in the presence of his
brother and sister- who, however, pretended not to notice, or at any
rate to notice as a matter in which they could hardly be expected to
take an interest.
His mother kicked a little at first against the money's having
gone to him as she said "over his papa's head." "Why, my dear," she
said in a deprecating tone, "this is more than ever your papa has
had"; but Ernest calmed her by suggesting that if Miss Pontifex had
known how large the sum would become she would have left the greater
part of it to Theobald. This compromise was accepted by Christina
who forthwith, ill as she was, entered with ardour into the new
position, and taking it as a fresh point of departure, began
spending Ernest's money for him.
I may say in passing that Christina was right in saying that
Theobald had never had so much money as his son was now possessed
of. In the first place he had not had a fourteen years' minority
with no outgoings to prevent the accumulation of the money, and in the
second he, like myself and almost everyone else, had suffered somewhat
in the 1846 times- not enough to cripple him or even seriously to hurt
him, but enough to give him a scare and make him stick to debentures
for the rest of his life.
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