CHAPTER VI.

_TO-DAY OR TO-MORROW._

"FATHER, you have not written to Miss Primrose yet."

"No, my dear."

"Who is Miss Primrose?" demanded Nessie.

"An old lady! A friend of father's. I don't know much about her. Father has to write and get advice."

"Not this evening! I'm only just come home."

"Yes, this evening. Nessie, you must not hinder father. The letter has to be written. We cannot go on like this."

"Go on like what?"—and Nessie opened her sleepy blue eyes wider than usual. She was lounging on the sofa, in an attitude which would have been ungraceful in anyone less young and fair; and her short hair was ruffled by contact with the cushions. She sat up slowly, gazing at Pauline. "What has happened?"

"Nothing new. Nothing that you don't know. Only that we have not money to spend as we are spending, and nobody will believe the fact."

"Father is the best judge," said Nessie, as if she at once scented blame in that direction. She went across the rug, and twined an arm in Mr. Ogilvie's. "But we are used to being kept in order by Pauline, aren't we daddy?"

Mr. Ogilvie patted the soft little hand, greatly comforted. Pauline had a way of making him feel himself in the wrong, and it was comfortable to have somebody near who would help him for once to feel that Pauline was in the wrong.

Nessie sat down on the arm of his chair, and laid her cheek against his.

"Who is Miss Primrose, and where does she live? Why have we never seen her, or heard about her?"

"My dear, it has not happened—" Mr. Ogilvie coughed away the rest of his sentence. He always had a cough ready for emergencies.

"But why hasn't it happened? Are you such old friends?"

"I knew her—yes—very well—"

"When, daddy?"

"My dear, years ago."

"When you were young?"

"Well, yes—" with a faint laugh.

"What makes Pauline so bent on getting up the acquaintance again?"

"It is not on my own account, Nessie. I am bent on knowing what we are to do."

"I don't see what that has to do with this. Does Miss Primrose live alone, father?"

"She may—probably."

"Is she handsome?"

"I have not seen her for—for more than twenty-five years. Not since Pauline was a baby. She was—rather pleasant-looking."

"Rather pleasant-looking, twenty-seven years ago. Oh, she must be a regular old fogie."

"When you are a quarter of a century older, I wonder how you will like to be spoken of so!" said Pauline.

"I can't imagine myself a quarter of a century older."

"But you must come to it if—"

"Oh, well, we all know that lots of things must happen. I shouldn't think I need have a moral lecture, the very moment I get home. Was Miss Primrose pretty, father, all those years ago?"

"She was—nice-looking, I believe."

"Only 'nice-looking,' you believe!' Is that all? At any rate you weren't in love with her, daddy."

Mr. Ogilvie reddened slightly, yes, actually reddened, and made an uneasy movement.

"'I' shouldn't like to be only 'nice-looking.' I'd rather be ugly outright—as ugly as Mr. Rudge. I do admire a fair woman, but fair men I detest. Father, did Miss Primrose—Where are you going?"

"I have something to attend to, my dear."

"That is always the way," declared Pauline, as her father vanished. "He never will go into business, or tell us about Miss Primrose. He runs away if one tries to make him."

"You worry him so about her. Why can't you leave him in peace?" asked Nessie, as if forgetting that her own questions this time had driven him off the field.

"Because—Nessie, you are a baby, or you would understand. We can't afford to 'live in peace,' as you call it. We haven't the requisite funds. That is why. It would be a mere fool's paradise for us—ending by-and-by in a crash. There is not money enough in our possession for us to live as we are living now, yet I can't get my father to see it. If you help him and fight against me, you will just make things worse."

"I can't see why. I'm sure the way we live is simple enough. And even, if we have to make changes, there is no such desperate hurry. A week or two more or less can't make such a lot of difference."

"You are my father over again. It is always 'no hurry' with him, and so we go on, frittering away all we have. The money will soon be at an end."

"Not his annuity."

"We shall get down to that, and that only, before long. One hundred and ten pounds a year."

"Well, it can't be helped." Nessie laid her fluffy head against the cushion. "I don't see any use in worrying."

"So you and he always say. If we had done all in our power, then I would agree with you, but not till then. It's very easy to shirk worry by putting off all responsibility on another person, but somebody has to 'worry,' as you call it, somebody has to think and plan, or nothing would ever get done. I wonder what sort of state you two would fall into, if you had not me to look after you both."

"A delicious state. I should lie in bed till noon, and nobody would ever talk about money."

"That's charming, of course, when there is enough money not to need talking about. Unfortunately, the less there is, the more one has to discuss its uses. People who have to earn a livelihood can't lie in bed till noon; and we are coming fast to that stage. However, if I go out as a companion to some old lady, you will be able to try your plan. Experience isn't a bad teacher."

Pauline spoke sharply, as if wounded. She toiled much for her father and sister. And it was, to say the least, dispiriting to find no particular gratitude felt in return.

Nessie's perceptions were by no means keen, but she was conscious of something wrong. "Go out as a companion!" she said wonderingly.

"I don't see what else is to be done. Father will never find any work to his taste, and somebody must do something. I should be off his hands then—provided with house-room and food; and I should make at least enough for my own clothes."

"But we couldn't manage without you! And I don't know anything about ordering dinner."

"You would have to learn," said Pauline, not greatly flattered by the estimate of her uses. "Everybody can learn."

"I am sure I couldn't. I hate that sort of bother. Oh, you mustn't go, of course. I didn't mean what I said just now. We could never get on without you."