CHAPTER XII.

HERBERT MILNER.

"WHY, my boy, what have you got there?"

The question was asked by a lady, who looked up from doing some bright wool work, to gaze in astonishment at her son, as he set down a heavy Gladstone-bag upon the table.

It was a handsomely furnished room; and the lad, who seemed to be about fourteen or fifteen, did not seem much accustomed to carry heavy burdens, although he appeared pleased enough with this one.

"Feel it, mother!" he said, bringing it round to her side that she might lift it.

"But what is it, my dear?" she asked, lifting the well-stuffed bag.

"They're Mr. Ramsay's papers and things, that have been sent home from the office—papers, and letters, and all sorts—for you see, he was ill such a long time, that often when he went to his office he could not do anything, and these have been turned out of his private drawer; and so, of course—"

[Illustration: "Why, my boy, what have you got there?"]

"But what are you going to do with them?" interrupted his mother, in the same surprised tone.

"I have brought them for you to look over," replied her son.

"Herbert! What do you mean?"

"Why, mother, you told me to ask if there was anything you could do for Mrs. Ramsay, and while I was speaking this bag was brought, with a letter, saying they were the papers found in Mr. Ramsay's private drawer. You see, he has been dead a fortnight now, so I daresay they want the room."

"I expect they do; but what am I to do with them?" said Mrs. Milner. "Really, Herbert—"

"I am coming to that directly. When poor Mrs. Ramsay saw the bag, she just sat down and cried. She is a poor thing, mother."

"Yes, I know she is. But you have not told me why you brought them here now," said his mother, impatiently.

"Oh, well, I told her you would do anything you could to help her; and then I asked if I should bring the bag here for you to look over. You know, mother, you are not like Mrs. Ramsay a bit. You don't sit down and cry over things, and so I thought—"

"But, Herbert, you had no right to think that I should like to go through Mr. Ramsay's private papers."

"But you could do it better than Mrs. Ramsay I am sure; and you wouldn't cry over it, as she would," protested Herbert.

Mrs. Milner was very vexed that her son should have put such a literal construction upon her offer to help her friend; and she thought Mrs. Ramsay ought to have known better, than to send her such a task. And so she resolved not to touch the bag this evening, but to call and see the widow the next day, and see if she could not rectify what she considered must be Herbert's blunder in the matter.

So the bag was put away, and mother and son spent a pleasant evening together, which was only once disturbed, and that was by a question that had been talked of occasionally between them lately, concerning an unknown aunt of Herbert's.

Mrs. Milner was a widow, and Herbert was her only son; and until lately, he thought he had no other relative, for his father was an only child. And somehow, without a word having been said about the matter, he had come to the conclusion that his mother also had neither brother nor sister. When, all at once, his mother told him that he had an aunt and cousins somewhere, and she would now like to know where they could be found, but it was so many years since she had heard anything of her younger sister, that she sometimes thought she must be dead.

It almost took the boy's breath away at first to hear that somewhere in the world were people who could claim relationship with him. And every now and again he would ask some question or other about these unknown friends. But his mother could tell him very little, beyond the fact that her sister had offended everybody who knew her, by marrying a man they considered beneath her; and as she refused to take anybody's advice, she was allowed to drift away from all who knew her.

"But the thought of my poor sister Elsie troubled your father before he died, for he thought he had perhaps been hard upon her. And so I promised I would try and find her; and he left some money for her if ever she needed it," she added, when telling her son of this sister.

Mrs. Milner thought she had better speak thus plainly to her son, when she put a carefully worded advertisement into some of the London newspapers; for there was no telling what might come of it. The unknown sister, or her despised husband, might appear at the door of their fashionable house at any time, and Herbert was not one to keep such a matter to himself. And so, to prevent him talking to other people about it, if such a thing should happen, Mrs. Milner told him beforehand.

But nothing had come of those advertisements, and more than a year had passed now; and it rather vexed Mrs. Milner to be reminded of her lost sister.

And so, when Herbert said, rather abruptly that evening, "Couldn't we do something else to find my lost aunt, mother?"

She looked up with a frown, and said, "My dear Herbert, do give your attention to the chess—that is sufficient for the present."

Herbert did not say any more until the game was finished. But when he had put up the chess board, he came and sat down by the fire, and looked thoughtfully into the cavernous depths of the coals for a minute, and then said slowly, "Don't you think we ought to try and find that auntie of mine?"

"What can we do? I was speaking to Mr. Capon the other day. Of course he had the management of all the business; and if a lawyer cannot see what is to be done, I am afraid we are not likely to succeed whatever we may try."

Herbert sighed, but did not look convinced. "I don't believe in lawyers much for a case like that," he said, in a disparaging tone. "If auntie was an heiress now, and there was a great deal of property in the question, it would make all the difference. I daresay they would find out something more that could be done then. But, as it is,—well,—I am not satisfied, mother."

His mother laughed at the tone in which these words were spoken. "My dear, I daresay the Capons would do more if I pressed them, but it would cost a great deal of money, and we are not such very rich people, you know. Besides, we cannot tell whether these unknown relatives are at all desirable kind of people to become acquainted with. I have not seen or heard of my sister for years; and her husband I never liked—he was much beneath us; and these sort of people always seem to sink lower and lower."

"But I have often heard you say that money is not everything, mother," said Herbert, quickly.

"I was not thinking of money alone, but of other things as well—moral character—and the finer feeling that makes all the difference between a gentleman and common people. Now Henry Winn—the man your aunt married—belonged to common people; and there is little doubt she has sunk to his level by this time." And Mrs. Milner sighed, as she recalled the picture of her younger sister when she last saw her.

After a pause, the conversation was renewed by Herbert asking some further questions about his unknown aunt—whether his mother had ever heard that he had cousins, as well as an aunt.

"Oh, I have no doubt there is quite a swarm of them. But they would be very undesirable acquaintances for you, my boy; and so I do not see that any good could be done by trying to find them."

"But there is the money my father left for aunt, if ever she should need it!" exclaimed the boy. "I have been thinking of that since I sat down here. Suppose aunt should want it just now! We ought to make sure of this, mother. Of course they may have got rich; there is no telling what may have happened; and they may now be rich, vulgar people, like the Stones."

"Herbert, why will you persist in saying the Stones are vulgar?" said his mother, rather angrily.

The boy laughed. "Because it is so plain to everybody. They are always trying to show off something or other. My aunt cannot be worse than the Stones; and if she is your sister, she could not be half so bad," he said, kissing his mother.

This gentle flattery appeased her, and the rest of the evening passed pleasantly enough.

Just before bed time he said, "Now, look here, mammy, I have one more spare day before I go back to school, and I'll give it to you to help with that bag, if you will promise not to bother Mrs. Ramsay about it. We will begin soon after breakfast in your morning-room. I know just how the thing ought to be done. You shall open the letters, and I will write down on a slip of paper the name of the person it came from, and just in a word or two what it was about, and then we will tie them up in packets, and give them over to Mrs. Ramsay. She may like to see them, by-and-bye, but there may be some business, she says, that ought to be attended to at once, so that some one must look over them."

Mrs. Milner would give no promise that night, but the weather helped Herbert in his plan, for the next morning proved to be a wet, windy day, that compelled them to stay indoors. And as soon as breakfast was over, the boy fetched the Gladstone-bag, and began turning out its contents upon the table.

"We shall forget the miserable weather now," he said, as he fetched a sheet of foolscap paper, and prepared to make his memoranda.

His mother sighed, but thought she might as well resign herself to the task, though she still felt that Mrs. Ramsay ought to do it herself.

Fortunately the letters all seemed short, and could be easily read, and so half a dozen memoranda were very quickly made of these. And then Mrs. Milner picked up one that seemed to require a great deal of reading before it could be understood.

"That seems to be a very long letter, mother," said Herbert, looking up from his task.

For a minute or two his mother still sat with the letter in her hand. But her son could see she was not reading it now, and he wondered what news it could contain that his mother was so affected by it.

"You read it, Herbert. I wonder how it came into Mr. Ramsay's hands. It is marked, 'To be enquired about.'"

She passed the letter to Herbert as she spoke, and he saw it was an official notification, that a scholarship gained by some girl had been resigned in favour of another, because of the death of the winner's father. There was some explanation about the girl having decided to stay at home and help her mother, but he saw nothing in this that should disturb his mother, and did not notice the name of the girl, in his hurry to read the business it contained.

"Do you think Mr. Ramsay intended to help this girl? What is her name?" and the boy turned to the letter once more.

"It is the name that struck me—Elsie Winn! My sister's name was Elsie, and I wondered whether this could be her daughter."

Once more the boy turned to the letter and read it through more carefully. When he came to the end, he said, "We must find these people, and see if it is my lost aunt. If it should be, they certainly need the money my father left for them; and they are not the kind of people you feared they might be."

"How do you know that, Herbert?"

"Why, mother, you see the letter from her governess says she is a very estimable girl, and deeply regrets having to give up the scholarship, but that she thinks it is her duty to do this, and stay at home and help her mother. Now, a girl who would do this is worth something! There is some grit in her, and she isn't likely to be vulgar, or at all a common sort of girl."

"My dear boy, how you do jump to conclusions! I send you to Mrs. Ramsay with a polite message, and you bring me back a bag of correspondence to look over. Now, this letter tells of a girl giving up a scholarship to stay at home with her mother, and you jump to the conclusion that she is a little paragon of perfection!"

"No, no, mother, I did not say that; I mean that a girl who will give up a good chance in life—as this probably was to her—just to stay at home and help her mother, is not a common, vulgar girl, but has the making of a lady in her."

"Herbert, Herbert," said his mother, smiling.

"You forget, mother, her mother is your sister, very likely; so why shouldn't she be a lady? Now, what are you going to do?" he asked, the next minute.

"Do! What do you mean? Are we not going to look through this bag?"

"But—but—mother, you will surely write a letter to the governess of this school, and ask her to tell you where this Elsie Winn lives. You can find out easily enough that way whether her mother is my lost aunt. And, of course, they will be very glad of the money that is waiting for them."

His mother smiled at his eagerness. "I will write to Capon by-and-bye, and ask him to make enquiries about these people, as this may prove to be a clue."

"Oh, mother! And I shall be away at school before you can hear anything," he said, impatiently.

"My dear boy, suppose these people should be total strangers, what good could be done? No, no, we must wait and let Mr. Capon write, or send a messenger, to find out what he can about these people; and then, of course, if it should be your aunt, why, I will go and see her."

"Thank you, mother. I really should like to feel that I have a cousin of some sort; and this Elsie I could be proud of, because it was a plucky thing to give up a scholarship after she had won it, and I should like to feel that I had a cousin like that."

Mrs. Milner thought the matter was disposed of when she had given this promise; but her son fetched writing materials at once, that she might send to the lawyer without delay. For he was anxious to have some further tidings of this Elsie Winn, nearly a year having passed since the letter was written; and there was no telling what might have happened during that time, especially as her father had died, and he could not have been a wealthy man, or his daughter would not have worked for a scholarship to enable her to go to a higher grade school. And it seemed likely that his aunt would have to work for herself and her children now, as this girl had to stay at home and help.

These thoughts made him more impatient; and Mrs. Milner had to yield to his entreaties, and write the letter to her lawyer at once, asking him to make enquiries about this family through the schoolmistress who had sent this letter.

While his mother wrote the letter, Herbert copied the address of the school, that he might take it with him when he went away; for if he did not hear soon the result of Mr. Capon's enquiries, he resolved to write himself, and say that he believed these people were relatives. Mr. Capon would not do this, he felt sure; and it was very likely that these enquiries would be like the other he had made. He had no faith in Mr. Capon, and what he was likely to do, because it was only about a hundred pounds that had been left for his aunt, and such a small sum as that would not be worth their great lawyer making a fuss about.

He saw that Mr. Capon's letter was sent to the post; and he half hoped that some sort of answer would come before he went away the next day. They got through their task of looking over Mr. Ramsay's papers, many of which proved to be circulars and begging letters of various sorts. For Mr. Ramsay, having no children of his own, was known to be a charitable gentleman; and this was probably why the letter from the school had been sent to him.

It might be that he had enquired, and helped this girl and her mother; but he hoped he had not, if it should prove that it was his very own cousin. The rest of the papers were soon disposed of, no others proving to be of any interest to anybody; and after tea, Herbert took the bag and his memoranda back to Mrs. Ramsay. But he said nothing of the letter they had found, which proved to be of so much interest to themselves.

Mrs. Milner said she would talk the matter over with her old friend when they met, and Herbert had better not say anything about it.

The next day the lad went back to school; and though the-meeting again with old school-fellows, after the holidays, was pleasant enough, he did not forget Elsie Winn and her scholarship: for in the very first letter he wrote home, he asked if his mother had heard from Mr. Capon, and begged her to tell him as soon as ever she had any news from the lawyer.