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“Dearest mamma,” said I, “I am very glad to see the noble manner in which you bear your loss; and more still to know that you are so rich as to be able to put up with it.” The fact was, I really thought the old lady had got a private hoard of her own, as many of them have–a thousand pounds or so in a stocking. Had she put by thirty pounds a year, as well she might, for the thirty years of her marriage, there would have been nine hundred pounds clear, and no mistake. But still I was angry to think that any such paltry concealment had been practised–concealment too of MY money; so I turned on her pretty sharply, and continued my speech. “You say, Ma’am, that you are rich, and that Pump and Aldgate’s failure has no effect upon you. I am very happy to hear you say so, Ma’am–very happy that you ARE rich; and I should like to know where your property, my father’s property, for you had none of your own,–I should like to know where this money lies–WHERE YOU HAVE CONCEALED IT, Ma’am; and, permit me to say, that when I agreed to board you and my two sisters for eighty pounds a year, I did not know that you had OTHER resources than those mentioned in my blessed father’s will.”

This I said to her because I hated the meanness of concealment, not because I lost by the bargain of boarding them: for the three poor things did not eat much more than sparrows: and I’ve often since calculated that I had a clear twenty pounds a year profit out of them.

Mamma and the girls looked quite astonished when I made the speech. “What does he mean?” said Lucy to Eliza.

Mamma repeated the question. “My beloved Robert, what concealment are you talking of?”

“I am talking of concealed property, Ma’am,” says I sternly.

“And do you–what–can you–do you really suppose that I have concealed–any of that blessed sa-a-a-aint’s prop-op-op-operty?” screams out mamma. “Robert,” says she–“Bob, my own darling boy–my fondest, best beloved, now HE is gone” (meaning my late governor–more tears)–“you don’t, you cannot fancy that your own mother, who bore you, and nursed you, and wept for you, and would give her all to save you from a moment’s harm–you don’t suppose that she would che-e-e-eat you!” And here she gave a louder screech than ever, and flung back on the sofa; and one of my sisters went and tumbled into her arms, and t’other went round, and the kissing and slobbering scene went on again, only I was left out, thank goodness. I hate such sentimentality.

“CHE-E-E-EAT ME,” says I, mocking her. “What do you mean, then, by saying you’re so rich? Say, have you got money, or have you not?” (And I rapped out a good number of oaths, too, which I don’t put in here; but I was in a dreadful fury, that’s the fact.)

“So help me heaven,” says mamma, in answer, going down on her knees and smacking her two hands, “I have but a Queen Anne’s guinea in the whole of this wicked world.”

“Then what, Madam, induces you to tell these absurd stories to me, and to talk about your riches, when you know that you and your daughters are beggars, Ma’am–BEGGARS?”

“My dearest boy, have we not got the house, and the furniture, and a hundred a year still; and have you not great talents, which will make all our fortunes?” says Mrs. Stubbs, getting up off her knees, and making believe to smile as she clawed hold of my hand and kissed it.

This was TOO cool. “YOU have got a hundred a year, Ma’am,” says I–“YOU have got a house? Upon my soul and honor this is the first I ever heard of it; and I’ll tell you what, Ma’am,” says I (and it cut her PRETTY SHARPLY too): “as you’ve got it, YOU’D BETTER GO AND LIVE IN IT. I’ve got quite enough to do with my own house, and every penny of my own income.”